As a high school student, I took several years of Mime training. While this was basically a glorified movement class, it also taught students the essentials of mime itself.
Like many students I occasionally found myself rather short on funds. On a trip to New Orleans, I saw several mimes, and peering into their buckets/hats/suitcases, I saw that they were making decent money for doing relatively little (being staues, following people around, etc).
I collected my makeup and black clothes and headed down to a district in our downtown area that has been revitalized in the last few years. I took only a derby hat and three juggling balls to fall back on if I got bored.
I selected the busiest intersection I could find and set up shop. I mimed my little heart out. I was opening doors, picking flowers, writing tickets to motorists, directing traffic, and most anything else I could think of.
While I was enjoying myself immensely, feeling the sense of freedom that comes with total anonymity and creative license combined, I discovered that crowd reaction was minimal. Could it be that the rumors were true? People really DO hate mimes!
Needless to say, I was a little upset. I didn't make a single dime that afternoon. I actually lost money after paying for dry-cleaning to get that damn mime makeup out of my pants.