Living out of my car

Living out of your car isn’t so bad, really. I finally have a place to stay, but I miss the car sort of. A day living out of your car goes like this, for me at least.

The first seconds of my day are spent waking up to an alarm clock set for precisely 7:30am. Why 7:30am you might ask? 7:30am is right in the middle of when most hotels offer continental breakfast in the morning. Wait, let me back up. So, my car is parked outside of a hotel, but not just any hotel. It’s parked outside of a choice hotel. If you don’t know what a choice hotel is, it’s pretty much any hotel that you have seen a commercial for. Anyway, so its 7:30am, I’m drenched in sweat, and I get out of my car. My neck hurts like hell, but once I start walking around it’s not so bad. I look at the hotel I’m next to and try to remember what door I’d decided the night before was the best one to go in through. I walk into some side door, find the breakfast, and eat so much food it’s ridiculous. Once I’m done eating, it doesn’t end there. I don’t know how much experience you have eating continental breakfast food, but there are lots of stuff you can take with you. I probably stuff something like 5 apples and 5 blueberry muffins into my cargo shorts before getting the fuck out of there.

Next stop for the day is Starbucks. I drive to the nearest Starbucks and find the comfiest chair in the place and then I’ll open my laptop. Then, I get in line to buy the most expensive caramel mocha monstrosity that Starbucks has to offer. Fuck that, I’m of course kidding, I don’t buy anything from them. I do use their bathroom quite a bit though. So ya, I stay in Starbucks pretty much the entire day and that’s when the majority of my work takes place. Once I get settled I’ll pop an adderall and chase it with bathroom faucet water. I used to dry swallow adderall but I don’t anymore because of this weird feeling I would get in my stomach when I used to do it. Alright, so I’m settled in the comfy chair and I’ve got the wifi going on my laptop. I get on craigslist to cruise around for jobs, watch movies, and listen to music. Also, I read. The latest book I’ve been reading is Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, it’s been a good read so far. Aside from how convenient Starbucks has become for me, I hate the place and I’d never buy anything from there. Sometimes it gets so cold in there that I just go to sleep in my car for about 20 minutes just so I’m not so cold anymore. After spending like 8 hours or so at Starbucks, I drive a little further on the interstate. Now it might be time to put like $10-15 bucks in my car. I walk into the Valero station and tell them to put money on a pump, but not before I’ve browsed the aisles and snatched a few candy bars.

I find another hotel and exit the interstate. I scope the new hotel out and quickly find out where the pool is and also which side door I think will be easiest for me to sneak into. After 3 weeks with a routine similar to this, I must say that the Holiday Inn is my favorite hotel because they leave the most clean towels out near the pool, and because they also have fantastic cinnamon rolls in the morning. Why the towels you might ask? I sleep in the backseat of my car engrossed in about 15 hotel towels. I always snatch the towels if I can. When I find the hotel pool, I’ll hop the fence and probably hang out there for a couple hours. Once 9:30 or 10:00 comes around, I try to force myself to go to sleep. I pop a couple sleeping pills and bundle up in towels in the backseat of my car. The biggest downside isn’t that it’s physically uncomfortable for me; it’s that the car will get hot as hell. I roll the backseat windows down, but still it’s hot. Once I get to sleep, I’m usually able to stay asleep, but it can be hard some nights.

I would be willing to bet someone that I could live one month out of my car and spend no money other than money for gas. I drink water out of faucets in the hotel bathrooms and at Starbucks, ok pal?