In 1789, an eccentric, barely literate leather-dresser named Timothy Dexter decided to get rich. His wealthy Boston neighbors despised him and routinely fed him deliberately disastrous investment advice to trick him into bankruptcy.
Instead, Dexter's absolute stupidity broke reality:
Bought "worthless" paper money: He used his life savings to buy depreciated Continental currency during the Revolution. Weeks later, the new US government redeemed the currency at full face value, making him instantly wealthy.
Bed-warmers to the tropics: Rivals convinced him to ship heavy brass winter bed-warmers to the tropical West Indies. The locals bought every single one at a massive markup to use as sugar ladles.
Stray cats to the Caribbean: Rivals told him to collect stray alley cats and ship them south. A massive rodent infestation had just hit the islands, and warehouse owners bought the cats in a bidding war.
Coal to Newcastle: They dared him to ship coal to Newcastle—a coal-mining hub equivalent to selling sand in the Sahara. His ship docked in the middle of a massive miners' strike, and he sold the cargo at record prices.
Faked his own funeral: He faked his death to see who would cry at his wake, hid in the kitchen, and beat his wife with a cane because she wasn't sobbing hard enough.
The punctuation book: He published an autobiography with zero punctuation marks, uppercase letters scattered randomly, and terrible spelling. When readers complained, the second edition included an entire extra page of commas, periods, and question marks telling readers to "peper and solt it as they plese."
Getting rich by accident every single time your rivals try to ruin you is the ultimate real-life cheat code. That wraps up Day 29!
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