It was Never Easy for Me

I had a rough childhood. My family had nothing and had to borrow to get even that. We lived at the dump for years. When people hear this, they always ask the same question: “If you lived at the dump, where did you throw your trash?”. Well, it was Florida, so we threw it beside the highway like everyone else. My family never took charity. I remind the reader at this point that breaking into a Goodwill drop box doesn’t count as charity because Goodwill hadn’t received the goods yet. Obviously, I had to go to work at an early age. My first job was being a test subject in a fetal drug study; of course, AFTER I was born, I had to buckle down and get a REAL job.

I worked hard: Hauling garbage, collecting garbage, burning garbage and working at Arbys. And, every extra cent went into my college fund, which went into my dad’s pocket, which was summarily lost at the track. My dad was a terrible gambler. His system was to bet on the darkest horse in the race, despite the fact that he was at a dog track.

Ultimately, to afford college, I had to sell a kidney and one of my livers. I managed to complete a four-year curricula in two years by taking the first and last class in each subject and then extrapolating. When the dean told me I was graduating summa cum laude, I punched him in the face because I didn’t speak Latin. When he explained what it meant, I punched him again because I didn’t want to look stupid for punching him the first time. He was an admirable man and I will miss him very much…

I got out into the real world again and pounded the pavement looking for a job. No job came of it and I really didn’t have anything else to pound. “What’s your experience?”, they would ask me. “Why should we hire you over someone else?” and “Why did you pound my pavement?”. The only experience I’d had was with the Arby’s and the garbage; well, there WAS the experience with the pre-fetal drug study and I did have a job lined up for that but it required moving back into the womb and my mom had already rented hers out to a couple from Edmonton with an option to buy…

Desperate for money, I started a pyramid scheme: I would take the Great Pyramid of Cheops out on the highway and stop it suddenly, causing the driver behind me to collide with me. Then, we’d “settle”. Unfortunately, I got caught and was forced by a judge to mail it back to the nation of Egypt, one block at a time. But, when I was reconstructing it here in the states, I found a solid gold mask, so beautiful and finely crafted that the world would never see its like again; so, I melted it down and sold it to buy several kilos of heroin.

But, I got ripped off. What I ended up with was several kilos of confectioners sugar… so, I sold the entire shipment to a confectioner. And, using THAT money, I went straight to the track… to bet on a DOG, unlike my father. Sadly, it was a train track and the bookies took me for everything I had.

Maybe some people aren’t meant to be successful…