» Desperate Times

What haven't I done is a better question...
I've been homeless twice. When I escaped from the wife I moved into a tiny pickup camper with just electricity. I had to bicycle 10km each way to work. I lived for 5 years without running water in a rundown trailer so I could afford to go to university.

In the army I lived 10km from the barracks off post and had no car. I became quite fit that summer bicycling 10k before I got to the bay to do morning PT.

I have lived off of a little ramen and soup for days. and nasty peanut butter and jelly sammiches.

I have driven on extremely low levels of sleep when required and have done this repeatedly.


I ventured 3300 miles across the US in a car I just bolted together 6 hours before leaving twice. Once for a bad clutch. Once for a bad tranny.

I have worked in the fast food industry. I've been a security guard armed and unarmed once in an animal research facility operated by Alcon. They had monkeys, mice and rabbits there. The animals ate better than I did with a minimum wage job. I've delivered telephone books, set up stores, worked on assembly lines, worked in the army and worked in concrete precasting place year round outside where I had to get in the concrete mixer at the end of the night and chip it out with an airhammer.(If the safety interlocks failed it would have been me stew).

I have ducked creditors and dodged paying things when I got behind. I have even had a car repossessed.

I have dug myself out of most holes except for my college debt, car and house.

My car is fairly new, I have a fresh graduate degree I can make money in... MBA and I have a house with a big two car garage, living room and two bedrooms to myself.

What am I most proud of that I have done in desperation? Leave my cheating wife 2 days before our 2nd anniversary.
(Tue 20th Nov 2007, 2:50, More)

» Debt pron

Getting married of course
I got married when I was in the US Army in Alaska, (the cold must have got to my brain). She called me up and said she was pregnant and "what are you going to do about it"

Cue me being the stand up guy and marrying her against all odds, against friends advice. I was enlisted and wasn't bringing home big dough so I proceeded to get an absolute wreck of a car that cost me more in storage yard fees than I paid for it cause it was broken down. On the way to get insurance right as I was pulling into the insurance lady's office the aforementioned car,(which had no acceleration and soft brakes) slid on ice magically into someone else's car leaving the insurance office. Cue much frustration and getting denied insurance for some reason by the people in the office who saw the accident.

Warning sign of the week: When the girl you are about to marry takes you to meet her state paid for mental health counselor. No seriously, it did not ring any warning bells.

So Right, I get married by a justice of the Peace and have a $20 cake at the wedding in the apartment. Thats when the fun begins. Since my Seargent's in the Army didn't approve of me getting married no one told me I had to fill out large stacks of paperwork and mind it through a byzantine system. Cue me 2 months later trying to support me and the wifey on MRE's snagged from work.

Then I get the cheapest apartment I can afford which is at the other end of town from the army base and have to ride a mountain bike to and from work. No problem cept it's 10k from work, each way. So I'd get up early, ride 10k to work then run 3k on top of other exercises week days.

Back pay arrives and I proceed to piddle away $1500 US on food, back rent and a N64, all while still riding a mountain bike back and forth to work. (summer mind you)

Then once I'm moved onto post housing I get a 3 bedroom unit with a washer and dryer in the basement. Best place I've ever lived so far. But I have no furniture to furnish it. Even had to make do with an air mattress for a month or so.

Now wifey gets a brilliant idea of getting herself on my checking account. She calls up the bank and gets checks sent to us with both of our names. (warning bells should have gone off but really they didn't)

Cue me being extremely overdrafted for almost a month straight until I find out that she has been writing checks against what the Dial in system says the balance is. No really. She would know that there was $500 in the account and proceed to write $800 in checks in like a day or two. After she wrote each check she would dial in and see how much money was in the account, Honest. The concept of a checking account was completely lost on her.

Cue me being roughly 1300 overdrafted with another 1600 in overdraft fees from banks and stores. I hastily confiscate the checking account from wife, get large personal loan and barely avoid getting an Article 15.

I find out 6 weeks after we are married that she has a daughter. No really, she calls me up at work( frequent occurence) and tells me she had to sign away her daughter that day. Turns out she had a young daughter that had her arm and leg broken by an ex boyfriend a long time ago and they were just finalizing the paperwork now.

I would regularly come home on payday, she'd draw me a bath and I would get out of the bath lighter in the wallet. Then that day or the next she'd want to go clubbing because a friend "loaned" her some money.

About the pregnancy to begin with? She has a "miscarriage" and I still decided to marry her.

I got out of the army, moved home and before a year was up I left and we had an amicable divorce. As amicable as it can be with someone who has multiple personalities and is pathological. Dad's the nicest guy in the world and really, I couldn't come over for christmas dinner if I brought her with. Seriously.


Cut to many years later, haven't remarried or even had a steady girlfriend and I've gone to school. I have a bachelors, working on my Masters of business administration, no house, new car ($14k debt), school loans($63k), and a killer job with a fortune 100 company.

Slightly before this though, I lived for 5 years without running water while I was going to school because the pikey mobile home in the woods was all that I could afford.

Apologies for length - Probably should but I can give any woman the best 2 minutes of her life. :)
(Tue 28th Nov 2006, 10:10, More)

» Stupid Dares

Drinking... and strip clubs
Earlier this year after a night of strip club hopping my mate dared me to drink the juice of everclear soaked fruit fruit cup. A good 4 shots of alcohol and fruit juice. I did. Without choking and after some incoherent ramblings ended up going to sleep/passing out shortly there after. Last laugh, I snored really, really loud.

What's Everclear? the kind I have is 95% alcohol or 190 Proof.


Strip clubs...

I was dared by a mate to go into the "Lusty Lady" with him. Turns out its a strip club of sorts. The lady's dance naked in a mirror encased stage with private viewing booths all the way around it. Imagine my shock when I saw they even provided kleenex if you had a cold.

www.flickr.com/groups/lustylady/pool/
(Tue 6th Nov 2007, 16:38, More)

» Stupid Dares

Once in first grade in the winter of Montana...
I was dared to stick my tounge on the flagpole and hold it there. Right before recess was over. Being the gullible sort I did and after ten minutes of being stuck to the frozen flagpole via my tounge, a partially laughing teacher poured some warm water over the tounge and flagpole and I was FREE!

This was the same school who's cafeteria *always* smelled of sauerkraut. The smell permiated the entire section of school.


EDIT: This happened to me in 1982 about a year before "A christmas story" came out...
(Tue 6th Nov 2007, 4:18, More)

» Personal Hygiene

I'm dodgy
I have eyebrow dandruff that I can't stop picking at. I can scratch and have a rain of dandruff but sometimes I pick at it and it comes off in large flaky scales. How large? I've had many of them be at least pea size across.

Nothing says sexy like having your lover pick off eyebrow dandruff after sex.

There's something deeply satisying about picking at my eyebrows at work and creating a little pile of eyebrow dandruff. Ahh.


Also, I lived for 5 years without running water. I stayed in a pikey mobile without much in services while I was going to school. It was cheap so thats why. One time, I had run out of money but that would be fixed the day after school started at UNI. It was summer and going through my clothes to pick out the least smelly fleece shorts was rough. Cue people saying whats that smell on the first day of class. Yeah. Got the clothes washed soon as I could which was the next day.
(Sat 24th Mar 2007, 20:30, More)