@the_tara nailed it. My neighbor called the race just by counting flag decals at the gas station.

Troy's key list trick is genius, honestly. I once spent three whole hours on a single page just listing different ways a character could knock on a door. Soft knock, rhythmic knock, knock with a specific number of beats. It got to the point where I was googling the history of door knockers in 18th century Europe. At that point you have to ask yourself, am I writing a fantasy novel or a thesis on architectural etiquette?

Funny you mention that podcast guy, I once raised my rates by 10 bucks an hour based on a TikTok from a guy who said "clients only respect you if you charge more." Lost two clients that same week, one of them was my most reliable regular who paid on time every month. Guess that 10 bucks wasn't worth the peace of mind.

Hold up, you gotta fix your math there. 500 dives at an average of 4 hours per dive is 2,000 hours, but commercial dives are usually way shorter, like an hour or two max for most inland stuff. I've done a ton of bridge inspections and they're barely 45 minutes sometimes. Realistically you're probably closer to like 500-750 hours underwater, still a ton but not 2,000. I only noticed I hit 100 dives because I had a logbook from my first year that I finally filled up, felt kinda surreal flipping through all those old entries.

But did it make you want to read the original version more?