Read about my life, and feel better about your own. At least, I hope your life didn’t turn out as badly as mine.
CHAPTER ONE; DON′T PLAN AHEAD
CHAPTER TWO: CHANGE DIRECTION EVERY FIVE YEARS; SET UNREALISTIC GOALS
CHAPTER THREE: PURSUE UNATTAINABLE WOMEN
CHAPTER FOUR: DON′T FINISH COLLEGE
CHAPTER FIVE: ROLE-PLAYING GAMES AND FICTIONAL CHARACTERS
CHAPTER SIX: TRY TO SAVE THE WORLD
CHAPTER SEVEN: DON′T CONFORM
CHAPTER EIGHT: NEVER SAVE ANY MONEY
CHAPTER NINE: MOVE AROUND A LOT
CHAPTER TEN: TAKE ADVICE FROM IDIOTS
INTRODUCTION
I am, unfortunately, all too qualified to write this book. After several decades in the workforce, my lifetime average annual income is well under $20K. My ‛retirement nest egg’ is well under one thousand dollars (i.e. nonexistent). I have been homeless twice. I couldn’t score in a woman’s prison with a fistful of pardons.
Of course, today, there is no getting anywhere unless you are already rich, have a huge windfall, a long period of time with really good luck, or at least ‛no setbacks’; which requires a long period of time with really good luck. However, I am a white male, and was born in 1956, so I didn’t have a clear-cut excuse for my failures in the first few decades of life. Education was reasonably-priced, and student loans, while they did exist, were not financially crippling.
For my younger readers, I should explain that there used to be something called ‵middle class′. I know it′s hard to believe, but at one time, the world was not divided into a handful of super-rich aristocrats, with everyone else dirt poor. Weird, huh?
Today, my life is totally in the shitter. I am not homeless, but only because of Section Eight. At least half of my situation is due to bad luck (starting with being born into poverty); but I could have been better off if I had made some better choices. Maybe. Okay, dammit – probably.
Some people try to get all their ducks in a row. I don‘t even have any more ducks. Most of my ducks died, and I had to sell the rest to try to pay rent. Lemme tell ya, ducks don′t fetch as much money as you′d think.
So I wrote this book. It’s a humor book, of the ‘dark humor’ variety. That is not unusual, at all. As the great Robert A. Heinlein pointed out in the greatest novel of all time*, laughter is how we deal with pain.
* Stranger in a Strange Land.