“25 grand is simply not enough money for me to get shot dead in some ghetto.  I will call ‘em back when they raise the starting salary back to a living wage.”

This is what I told my mother when I was fresh out of college, waiting tables for cash and a 3.30 an hour paycheck at a local greasy spoon and pretending to apply for jobs post-college.  I was twisting in the wind, failing to land publishing positions and uninterested in selling insurance, knives, or the Yellow Pages (yes, people still do that).  I had just taken the NYPD test because I figured it provided an opportunity to ward off my parent’s exhortations that I make a career decision pronto.  I simply wasn’t into it. As far as I was concerned, waiting tables and drinking Negro Modelos on the public beach at 3 o’clock in the afternoon after a day shift was all I needed in life, until I decided to write the next classic American novel. After all, it worked for Kerouac and Thompson.

Anyway, I could never be a cop. Cops get drug tested. Cops wear stupid haircuts. Cops berate kids on the beach just looking to have a good time for drinking a couple of beers and starting a bonfire. Cops are “that guy.” No one wants to be “that guy.”

Fast forward to 2009; I’m a salesman, like every coasting, middle class American male my age who never made a decision. I sling telephone systems and voicemail systems to small and miniature sized businesses in the five boroughs. Because of the recession most of my business has been the latter, and so I carry my demo set wherever it takes me in hopes of convincing customers to buy five to ten phones at a time from me so that I might be able to afford groceries this month.  Five sales a month keeps me in the black, and I’ve got two knocked out for the week, as I proceed with cautious optimism to the grimiest sections of Brooklyn to meet with some non-profits of note that have cash to burn in the immediate future.

Meetings one and two go on without a hitch and I’m soaring in my head. I realize that while the next month may be another one spent eating Chef Boyardee, spaghetti, and peanut butter and jelly, September will be prosperous. I will be able to go out regularly like I did pre-recession without bean counting, and maybe I will even develop a weight problem to worry about as a result. I never thought that would be welcome.  Things are looking up!

I quickly exit the subway station at Rockaway Boulevard and realize I’m not in Kansas anymore.  A short view of the landscape reveals a few crack heads and welfare moms. I am somewhat unphased, because I’m a 6-4, 200 pound man who has taken a beating or two in his lifetime and I carry a large screwdriver that I might use as a weapon should trouble approach. None seems to be approaching. I pull out my iPhone and discreetly begin checking the GPS, and in moments I arrive at my destination.

After a quick survey of job site 1 I begin searching for directions to job site 2 and I find them. I proceed west only to find a structural disconnect between the maps direction and the way the streets flow. I hold my phone up in front of my face and being proceeding like one giant sore thumb towards the intersection.  Somewhere, a “lost white boy” signal must have alerted the neighborhood.  Across the street, two elderly men sitting in front of a garage beckon me. “Say hey whiteboy, don’t be walkin over there, dem brothas is trouble” is what they say, and unfortunately, I continue walking , and what they say doesn’t register until one of the four fine young gentleman across the street screams “ayyo white boy, let me git a look atchyo phone.”

It is in moments like these when the shitpile that is my worthless lower middle class mid 20’s life reveals itself to me.  Here I stood on a corner in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn, outside of Crown Fried Chicken and across from a community garden built where no one felt it worthwhile to erect a building after the last one likely collapsed, demo phone kit in my bag. I am holding up an iPhone that I could never afford were it not gifted to me in celebration of my 27^th year of mediocrity on this planet and might as well be screaming “rob me, please,” and wearing a pink shirt that says “easy mark.” I am quickly, predictably, approached by four “urban youths” in doo rags and team caps whose only occupation seemed to be beating down white stiffs like me. So… I did what any red-blooded, 6-4 200 pound American male with an improvised weapon in his possession would do in the face of such odds…

I sprinted to the subway station 5o yards away and didn’t look back until I was safely seated next to a friendly looking old woman on the C train with the grandma glasses and the white knit sweater over her shoulders.  I called the customer and relayed the afternoon’s events to them. They were not sympathetic. “What kind of a retard stands on a corner in the ghetto sticking his PDA up in the air for all to see?” Needless to say I did not get the sale as a result of my inability to survey “Site 2.” Another wasted opportunity.

You can mock me for my behavior, and you could call me less of a man, and you’d probably be right.  I’ve been kicked around and my life hasn’t turned out the way I wanted. I have a job I hate and bills that I can barely pay, and I visit the bank of mom a little too often for my liking and I can barely afford to take my girlfriend out for ice cream. I haven’t authored the great American novel and I probably never will. This is nothing more than another sad event in what’s been a fairly underwhelming life, and I guess you can say I acted rather predictably; you can say all that, and you’d be right, but in the end, I can hold my head high knowing that I’m a man of principal, because I stood by my pledge:

“There’s just no way I’m getting shot dead in some ghetto for 25,000 a year.”

Photo by Hugh_Jack@ss

Believe it or not, writing for a humor website leaves me with a little bit of free time, which is why I spend upwards of 100 hours per week watching television. I’ve always been a “watch TV for the commercials” kind of guy, and I’ve noticed that lots of commercials are highlighting their products in terms of the current recession. From E-Trade to Domino’s, it seems that reminding people how hopelessly fucked their nest eggs are is a surefire way to make some sales, despite the fact that Domino’s has nothing to do with bailouts.

This could mean that we’ll be seeing all sorts of zany industries and markets relating their products to our current financial shit storm. I’ve written up some commercial transcripts, to give you an idea of what this might look like…

Commercial #1

[Sad old man, sitting next to his sad old wife]: He took everything from us. We’ve got nothing left.

[Somber, serious narrator]: Bernard Madoff stole sixty-five billion dollars from the American people. For decades, Madoff conned hundreds into buying into his scheme, raping them of their 401ks.

[Woman]: He gained our trust, and then just…*sniffle*… just bent us over and fucked us. I’ve never been fucked so hard in my life. (Squeezes husband’s hand, giving him a small, bleak smile)

[Man]: How could a 70-year-old Jewish man fuck so many people so hard?

[Woman]: And to be able to fuck them every day for decades! He’s got more stamina than that colored trombone player I railed in the ‘30s! (Her husband gives her a quick, peculiar glance)

[Narrator]: You’ve already lost your children’s college funds, but at least you can hold onto your love life. If you want to be able to fuck people as hard as Madoff did, the solution is clear.

[Viagra Band]: VIVAAAAAAAA VIAGRA!

[Narrator]: Ask your doctor if Viagra is right for you.

[Man, smiling as he caresses his wife, who gives him a sultry gaze]: Now I’ve got a Ponzi scheme of my own (Both give a hearty laugh)… My penis.

Commercial #2

[Vince]: Hi, it’s Vince with ShamWow! In times like these, we’ve got to cut costs wherever we can, which is why the ShamWow is a great purchase.

Not only does a ShamWow keep you from spending cash every month on rags, sponges and paper towels, but with our new improved design, you can save all your toilet paper costs too! That’s right, the new ShamWow is so efficient that you can wipe your ass with it! I’m gonna show you a quick demonstration here; pretend this swatch of carpet is your asshole, and this cola is feces (pours generic cola on carpet swatch). See how the ShamWow picks that shit up? Then you just ring it out into the crapper. It sells itself!

This thing is unbelievable! You can use it on the kitchen, the boat, your bloody face after it gets bit up by a methed out whore, the RV, the car you’re living out of now that your house got foreclosed. Just listen to this testimonial from the CEO of a tech start-up:

[CEO]: My gutter-wine has turned me blind, so I’ve been known to spill from time to time, ‘specially when I get hobo drunk. Now I just use the ShamWow to clean up my spills, then I just ring it out over my mouth! It also keeps me warm a hell of a lot better than a pile of newspapers. And it’s made in Germany, so you know it’ll keep the rickets away.

[Vince]: I know in these tough times, some of you are all about making the right investments. Well I’ve got a great investment for you: ShamWow! We’ve sold so few of these that they’re practically guaranteed to be rare collectors’ items in a few years, so you can sell your ShamWow for some major cash. Call today and I’ll send you fifty of the fucking things!

Commercial #3
[Male voiceover]: Last September, we all learned just how quickly our finances can disappear, which is why we need an insurance provider that is there for us when times are tough.

[Rotoscoped woman]: I’m sick of all these insurance companies that are out of touch with what regular people need. I want an insurance company that understands what I’m going through during this financial crisis.

[Male voiceover]: At American International Group, we understand. We’ll be with you every step of the way as you try to escape financial ruin. We also can’t afford a longer commer- [Commercial ends abruptly]

Commercial #4

[Mildly attractive woman in her late thirties]: You know, my vagina is an awful lot like the economy: back in the ‘90s, business was booming. Americans, Swedes, Japanese; everybody was investing in it! But the bubble burst when I realized that some of my gentleman callers made some sub-prime loans, sending my vagina into an itching, burning recession.

I needed a bailout, and that’s why I turned to TwatGloss, the finest douche around! My vagina was collapsing, but now that I’ve pumped it full of TwatGloss’s patented witch-hazel solution, it’s back to its AAA rating! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go pick up some truck-stop stimulus packages, if you know what I mean!

[Jovial, game-showy male voiceover]: TwatGloss! It’s what you need to clean your recession!

I’m 27 and I spent the better part of my life in an upper middle class home surrounded by the rich and middle class alike. So it was with much chagrin that I embarked on this project known as adulthood, bill paying, and technology sales.

I had spent the first several years of my post-college freedom having a pretend college isn’t over pity party and I was left without the all important safety net.  I had traded a foundation for booze, bud, and adventure.

It was all worth it. For a month or so. Then the long haul set in. For four months I lived the dirt poor life. Here are the things I learned.

Cans Are Pretty Worthless
When my wallet was fat and the bills were nil, I threw back quality brews like Sierra Nevada and Arrogant Bastard. The idea of drinking the canned swill that made me wake up with a fuzzy head and a blanket full of swamp gas seemed as unacceptable as Larry the Cable Guy.

When my two week budget was reduced to two digit numbers, I quickly regained my affinity for the can, under the inane rationalization that somehow I’d be getting some value back for all the slop I was slugging.  All I got was a pair of man-tits, some saddlebags, and, after every wasted weekend, enough money to buy the Post and a cup of coffee on Monday. If the environmental lobby really cared about recycling and the poor, they’d put a 25 cent stamp on those cans.  You know that homeless schmuck on your block pushing the garbage can? He’s angling for two Double Quarter Pounder with cheese meals at McDonald’s, a coffe, and the New York Post. There are no Aluminum Astors.

Nutrition is for the Wealthy
Certainly this is a point that’s bound to be disputed by the Brooklyn art set, but after six years of working in restaurants and dining on expense accounts, it’s not so easy to transition to beans, sprouts, and cheap tea.  After scoffing at obese poor people for years I quickly began to understand the method to their morbid obesity. Fatty food fills you up like nothing else, and on the cheap side, it can trigger a catatonic couch ride where the only thing you’ll be doing is watching cable television(or the bastard ass channel guide if you’re unable to pay that bill, teasing you with some obscenely good movie schedule that only exists when you’re out of service!).  You can only eat tuna so often before you get sick of it, but those free donuts at your office can fill you up until at least 4 o’clock. The high quality cuisine of the poor man is peanut butter and jelly with bananas, and spaghetthi with store brand marinara. A Baconator washed down with a Slurpee is the dinner of kings.

Material Possessions Ship Well
When your paycheck isn’t cutting it and you don’t want to resort to the bank of mom, look to your possessions. My library lined the walls like asbestos in NYC elementary schools. When the bills came knocking, manila shipping envelopes stripped me of my books like Strip Tease stripped Elizabeth Berkley of her dignity. I shipped off 90% of my library. The only reason I didn’t ship it all was because people weren’t interested in copies of The Nazi Germany Source book or beat up copies of Tropic of Cancer. I was left with a collection more paltry than NYC’s public library. I don’t think I could have sold those books to the homeless as kindling; either way, I wouldn’t find out because my bills were paid for that month.

Your Parents Love You Again
When I moved out my parents saw right through the whole freedom and maturity thing. I wanted to drink without being asked if I planned on driving somewhere in the next century. I wanted to wake up in the morning and smoke pot while watching Sports Center. I wanted to fornicate loudly without being walked in on and utterly emasculated.

When I walked in to my parent’s house for a home cooked meal they knew exactly what was up. There was no money for booze and bong hits.  Women are not attracted to the gaunt fellow with his pockets turned out and the Natty he snuck into the bar.
All of a sudden I was mommy’s little boy again and my dad couldn’t wait for me to go to church with him or talk about how Hollywood is full of soft nancy boys. They knew I needed their bucks and so there I sat, watching Steven Segal movies and listening to the hot church gossip.

You Can Live on Twenty Dollars For Two Weeks…

Assuming you work in an office and have more than a half a tank of gas, it is entirely possible to get by on this paltry sum.  I had three days worth of one meal in my refrigerator, some canned beans, one can of soup, and a few boxes of spaghetti. Some dubious bread, some passable jelly, and a big jar of peanut butter.  That added up to two weeks worth of dinner.

I still had a job and a suit that separated me from the homeless methadone addicts outside of my office, and so I still had access to an endless supply of watercoolers.  My hunger lead to a quick discovery: a half dozen cups of water an hour is both an extremely cleansing and extremely filling experience.  For lunch, a banana downstairs cost 75 cents if it looked a little dubious, and that, coupled with the free flatbread that they hand out would get me on the train, in a malnourished slumber, at 6 o’clock.

My social life was equally as ghetto.  With my supply of cans and my bank account equally pathetic, I turned to old, reliable two for four dollar Budweiser 40 ouncers.  I would chug as much as I could and put the cap back on and re-fridge it for the next night. I couldn’t even afford the luxury of pouring a single drop in memory of my dead homies. Even worse, I’d follow up said blasphemy by being the skeevy guy who shows up at parties without bothering to ask “you want some money for this beer?” Nope. Just slugged ‘em back in the corner hoping my financial situation would improve before people started referring to me as Dirtbag Bob.

Ultimately I made my way out of the financial doldrums. A loan from a mom, a loan from my grandma, and a sugar mamma girlfriend who refused to accept Ritz crackers and Carlo Rossi on the couch as “a night out on the town” helped me get my sad little act together and now I can proudly say that I one day look forward to having a bank account more substantial than my nickle collection.

Anyone got a quarter to git me started?

Gym memberships are like cell phones, everyone has one. The difference is, unlike a cell phone, most people don’t use the gym everyday. In a time when being money conscious is the least we can do to fund our nightly vices, here are alternatives to the gym that will leave you feeling healthier than a session with a colon cleanser or vacuum attachment (tough times).

Classes
Most people don’t understand the gym is betting against you. A year long contract means monthly payments deducted from your checking account. They already own you like you’re darker than the end of Roy G. Biv. It’s like college, even though you pay, you don’t have to show up. A gym that makes money needs a fraction of their clientele to show up while the rest pass to sit on their ass. It is the equivalent to fighting a Russian boxer in Russia, beating him, and suffering harrowing brain damage while your brother-in-law blows all your money. You can convince yourself that your gym membership is a step in the right direction but in the end, you’re losing. The alternative is classes. Any physical activity class needs you to show up or they won’t make money. In addition, they are mainly pro-rated so you can get your money back. You are their main source of marketing because a live demonstration of a kickboxing cardio workout looks weird. If they can’t work you out like that time you met that stranger in the Bahamas after you were cheated on, then no amount of ads in the Pennysaver is going to make a difference for the places that hold classes.

Portion Control
If you can’t manage to put that cupcake down, then no amount of gym time is going to save you. You can’t work off a Burger King meal with a forty-five minute workout. Most people aren’t actually hungry when they eat because food has become a common form of social interaction. People have been meeting over food for centuries. If you want to stay out of the gym, treat eating as a form of survival as opposed to an activity to pass the time. When the time comes to eat, pick up something remotely healthy. You’ll learn to realize that you require less than you expect when that apple quenches your pseudo hunger. In addition, you will learn to appreciate the taste of simplicity as if you were an Orthodox Jew who caught a view of some female ankle.

The World around You
There is this form of exercise that people have been using since the dawn of time. It’s called walking! You can get extra steps wherever you go. This shouldn’t be hard to figure out, stairs as opposed to the elevator or escalator, parking your car a little further away, or biking short distances as opposed to driving. It is interesting to note the gym charges you for all these activities. They are the stair master, treadmill, and stationary bike respectively. Combine these simple cardio exercises with some crunches and pushups and you will start to see the difference in your energy and general shape.

Since gyms have become the normal standard for exercise, those not part of one are inclined to do less about their well-bring. The world produced less fat people when gyms weren’t around. In addition, if your gym costs $50 a month, you are throwing $600 a year for a contract that doesn’t hold you accountable for your actions. Does this mean the gym is for nobody? No, the gym is for those who make it an integral part of their lives or those who were picked on by other children or those beaten by angry parents. The gym is actually niche specific, and if you can’t relate to what it was like to be touched in special places, then the gym isn’t for you.