Ever since I decided to abandon the great societal machine to follow my dream of becoming a writer, my spirit radiates and my soul smiles, but my wallet lays dust ridden and derelict of capital.
I have $5.25 to my name and I’m $40 over drafted in my checking account. I owe PG&E for five months of energy use, my dad an untold amount for various cash spots he’s been giving me throughout the year, as well as a numerous amount of friends for feeding me and getting me drunk.
I’ve been sucking, bumming and relying on people for the better part of a year now and the realization of it is bringing me down. I’m on the bum. It is usually in these stark revelations of my poor financial situation that I turn to booze, cigarettes and other “smokable” plants to take my mind off the depression of poverty, but I’m running low on those as well.
There are two cigarettes left in the pack I bought earlier today and it is taking every fiber of my being not to smoke them until it is absolutely necessary-so I need to find some other vice or activity to occupy my time until then.
I have a half bottle of Carlo Rossi Sangria in the fridge I could start chugging and it would be just to get me optimistic and hopeful for the world again, but I am reluctant to cap it off because I don’t feel like rummaging through the last of my food in a fever of drunken munchies.
I could chug a bunch of coffee and try to bust out some romantic self-loathing prose but that would leave me without a pick-me-up in the morning and I can’t afford that because I have school.
The truth of the matter is that I’m running out of options here, but luckily in my long run as a scavenger, I have been able to devise a system for maintaining my stock of necessary vices. Coffee is essential for starting off my day.
If I’m in a hurry in the morning and can’t scrounge up the change for a cup at Starbucks, I’ll stash a cup in my satchel so I can get a refill for about $.50. Sometimes I can pull off a free cup at the gas station next to my house if the cashier isn’t paying to close attention, but I’m not one to advocate petty theft.
If I somehow managed to have a can of coffee around the house, I always find that I am either out of sugar or creamer.
Usually I hit up the gas stations again and make a note of it when I go to count change for a pack of cigarettes to the cashier. Cigarettes are a vice of mine that falls short of true love. But like a beautiful woman they don’t come cheap and anyone and every one of them are worth the trouble-I have no preference.
I’ve been able to lately get a pack of Marlboro No. 27’s, Special blends or Menthols in a dollar off pack that runs me anywhere from four to five bucks.
Camel’s Menthols too, have been on sale for the past couple of months, along with their Crush blend and 99s are $1 to 50 cents off. Now all I have to work on is getting myself not to smoke all of them in a day.
I can usually ration my smokes more effectively by avoiding binges of parting.
If I’m not drinking, I’m not smoking as much. But at times I do find that I need to be social and if I can’t afford to make a fool out of myself at the bars. I settle for discounted liquor at the Rite-Aid near my house. If I really need a buzz I’ll settle for a 40 ounces of King Cobra or pints of Four Locos, but I reserve that kind of desperation for really bad days.
On most other days when I find myself fresh out of cash with time to kill, I call on good friends. Sometimes they have some cash to fork out for a good time, a meal, and at others, just good conversation.
In my recent retirement from the rat race of modern living, I find my relationship with friends and family the most valuable thing on this earth, they keep me alive and healthy, they carry me in moments of decadence and depravity, and it is for that alone that I can never call myself a poor man.