I just thought this was something funny to share will the readers. Once when I was 15, I was standing around at a lil' saints gas station bored out of my mind. When a thought came to me, I walked over to the edge of the road and picked up a white pebble about the size of my pinky nail. I bushed it off and put it on my tongue. I walked over to this crackhead "Murphy". Everyone in the neighborhood knew Murphy and knew he would do anything for a rock.
Now, Murphy knew who I was and that my mother was dating the biggest crack dealer in south Florida. I asked Murphy if he needed anything and he said "Child, I always need something". So I stuck out my tongue and flashed Murphy what was in my mouth. I told him $20 and I had never seen someone rip a $20 bill out of their pocket so fast. I spit it out in Murphy's hand and walked away, He jumped back on his bike and peddled about 40 feet before I heard the sound of rusty bike breaks against rubber. When I looked over my shoulder, Murphy was cursing in a language I doubt was even English.
Well, Murphy rode his squeaky little bike over to my house and told my mom what I had done, and do you know what she had to say?
"Murphy, that's what you get for trying to buy crack from a 15 year old".
GPS
Friday, April 3, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Teenage Crack Princess
When I opened this blog, I had every intention of revealing my deepest & darkest secrets. This is one of them....
At the age of 14, I was a Crack Princess. Whats a crack princess? Well, I should let you know first of all that I have never once tried crack, but I was a crack princess because my mother was dating and we were living with the biggest crack dealer in South Florida, Jose Gutierrez. I wont be changing his name to protect any innocent for two reasons, 1) He isn't anything but innocent and 2) He died 3 years ago in prison.
When I was 11 years old, my mother had moved on from recreational use of drugs like Ecstasy and GHB to smoking crack. We knew mom was getting bad when we moved out of our upscale apartment into a 2 bedroom trailer in the middle of the ghetto. If I recall correctly, we only lived there for a few months with her 20 something boyfriend. I do remember Christmas that year, Me, my younger sister and my younger brother all received one gift to share, a Super Nintendo. We loved it, we played it all day. But the next morning, mom brought it back to Walmart.
Soon after Christmas, my sister and brother moved in with their dad and my grandparent came and took me to live with them. I spent 2 years with my grandparents, barely seeing my mother, probably because most of the time she was in jail.
But after a summer with my dad in Germany when I was 13, I came home to my grandparents and my mom came by one night and asked me to spend the weekend with her. I was so excited to spend time with her. But time with her was not at all what I got. When we arrived at her house, she was living with 3 spanish men and she told me she didn't feel comfortable having me sleep there. So she brought me down about 5 houses to her Friend Alice's house.
She introduced me and told my about her 14 year old daughter and said I would have fun. So I stayed. I didn't meet her daughter that weekend, instead I met her daughter's 18 year old boyfriend and his two friends age 17 and 20. i spent the whole weekend with them smoking weed and drinking.
I went home to my grandparents on Monday only to tell them I was moving out and going to my moms. They were so mad, they told me I could never come back to stay with them....that was a lie of course but I wont get into that now.
So my newly proclaimed 20 year old boyfriend came and whisked me away to my new house complete with no adult supervision and nothing but partying. After about 6 months, 2 sexual partners and 10 different drugs later...I moved into a house with my mom and her crack dealing boyfriend. Did I mention that her boyfriend spoke almost no English at all?
Anywho, My mom seemed to get skinnier by the day and she stopped hiding the fact that she was smoking crack from me. In fact I can recall her smoking it in front of me several times and chatting about the neighborhood rumors, like a normal daughter and her mother over coffee. Only with us there was the stench of burned rubber in the air.
At that point in my life I didn't realize how much I hated it, I could do whatever I wanted. I had been kicked out of school for possession of marijuana, I never had to pay for anything including drugs, they were just handed to me by anyone who wanted to get in good with my mom's boyfriend.
Finally, shortly after my 15th birthday, my mom had been arrested for possession charges and was sentenced to do weekends in jail for 7 weeks. Now to alot of you that wouldnt seem like much, but to an addict who would have to detox every Friday night, lay sick in bed all weekend only to get out on Monday and go right back to the drugs...it was hell. My mom convinced my grandfather to buy her a bus ticket and give her some spending cash and she left for Daytona beach. She got cleaned up...but it didn't last long..that's a whole new story.
thanks for reading.
GPS
At the age of 14, I was a Crack Princess. Whats a crack princess? Well, I should let you know first of all that I have never once tried crack, but I was a crack princess because my mother was dating and we were living with the biggest crack dealer in South Florida, Jose Gutierrez. I wont be changing his name to protect any innocent for two reasons, 1) He isn't anything but innocent and 2) He died 3 years ago in prison.
When I was 11 years old, my mother had moved on from recreational use of drugs like Ecstasy and GHB to smoking crack. We knew mom was getting bad when we moved out of our upscale apartment into a 2 bedroom trailer in the middle of the ghetto. If I recall correctly, we only lived there for a few months with her 20 something boyfriend. I do remember Christmas that year, Me, my younger sister and my younger brother all received one gift to share, a Super Nintendo. We loved it, we played it all day. But the next morning, mom brought it back to Walmart.
Soon after Christmas, my sister and brother moved in with their dad and my grandparent came and took me to live with them. I spent 2 years with my grandparents, barely seeing my mother, probably because most of the time she was in jail.
But after a summer with my dad in Germany when I was 13, I came home to my grandparents and my mom came by one night and asked me to spend the weekend with her. I was so excited to spend time with her. But time with her was not at all what I got. When we arrived at her house, she was living with 3 spanish men and she told me she didn't feel comfortable having me sleep there. So she brought me down about 5 houses to her Friend Alice's house.
She introduced me and told my about her 14 year old daughter and said I would have fun. So I stayed. I didn't meet her daughter that weekend, instead I met her daughter's 18 year old boyfriend and his two friends age 17 and 20. i spent the whole weekend with them smoking weed and drinking.
I went home to my grandparents on Monday only to tell them I was moving out and going to my moms. They were so mad, they told me I could never come back to stay with them....that was a lie of course but I wont get into that now.
So my newly proclaimed 20 year old boyfriend came and whisked me away to my new house complete with no adult supervision and nothing but partying. After about 6 months, 2 sexual partners and 10 different drugs later...I moved into a house with my mom and her crack dealing boyfriend. Did I mention that her boyfriend spoke almost no English at all?
Anywho, My mom seemed to get skinnier by the day and she stopped hiding the fact that she was smoking crack from me. In fact I can recall her smoking it in front of me several times and chatting about the neighborhood rumors, like a normal daughter and her mother over coffee. Only with us there was the stench of burned rubber in the air.
At that point in my life I didn't realize how much I hated it, I could do whatever I wanted. I had been kicked out of school for possession of marijuana, I never had to pay for anything including drugs, they were just handed to me by anyone who wanted to get in good with my mom's boyfriend.
Finally, shortly after my 15th birthday, my mom had been arrested for possession charges and was sentenced to do weekends in jail for 7 weeks. Now to alot of you that wouldnt seem like much, but to an addict who would have to detox every Friday night, lay sick in bed all weekend only to get out on Monday and go right back to the drugs...it was hell. My mom convinced my grandfather to buy her a bus ticket and give her some spending cash and she left for Daytona beach. She got cleaned up...but it didn't last long..that's a whole new story.
thanks for reading.
GPS
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Starving Criminal
So most would agree that panhandling is a crime, and I agree with them..because it is. But when you are down on your luck, you do what you have to do. I personally haven't panhandled in a long time, besides the once or twice I ran out of gas and had no money...I didnt see anything wrong with asking the guy at the next pump for a few spare dollars.
But there was a time in my life when I lived on panhandling and I lived for it. I got to be so good at it that I would take bets from people at how long it would take me to come up with any amount they name. Now before you get your panties in a bunch and start throwing names and accusations around, I never once panhandled when I didn't actually NEED the money. I was in no way a lazy bum. I was about 18 the first time I ever panhandled, my daughter was about a year old and my husband and I had become homeless and all we had was our 72 Cutless Supreme and the highway.
We traveled the state of Florida trying to find a place to belong. But there was only one problem....we had no money. I still remember the first time, we were in Jacksonville. We had about 75 cents to our name, we were out of gas, hadnt ate in 36 hours, and we had used our last WIC check for formula. My husband pulled into a Wal-mart parkinglot and parked. We sat there looking at eachother for over 10 minutes trying to combine our thoughts on what we should do.
Without a word, my husband jumped out of the car and walked up to the first person he saw coming out of the store. He talked to them for a mear 30 secs and walked back to the car smiling. He leaned into my window and handed me a $20 bill. I was in shock. I asked him how he got it ( I thought for sure he somehow robbed the guy he was talking to), but he said that he told the guy the truth, and he gave him the money.
Now, when you are flat on your face broke, $20 is alot of money. But it wasnt enough, where were we going to sleep? So we spent about 2 hours in that parking lot asking total strangers for help and by 6pm we had over $100!
I was so happy, but still felt so much shame for what we had to do. Like some may think, we didn't run off to the nearest ghetto and buy a crack rock or run to the liquor store...we went to Wendy's and had a nice meal, bought some diapers and formula, pumped $10 in the tank and headed to the nearest motel. We were set! Well at least for the moment.
We spent hours everyday for over a week at that walmart begging for money so we could survive, and after useless attempts to find a job with no real address or permanent phone number we knew that it was time we were on our way.
We lived like this for over 2 months, different towns & different stores. We came familiar with the best way to approach people, the ones that for sure would call the cops, the ones that would give the most and which stores had the biggest fish.
I am in no way proud of what we did but you know what, I am not ashamed. The money we got from the contribution of others was spent wisely, we weren't taking advantage of people or lying to them..we were surviving.
But there was a time in my life when I lived on panhandling and I lived for it. I got to be so good at it that I would take bets from people at how long it would take me to come up with any amount they name. Now before you get your panties in a bunch and start throwing names and accusations around, I never once panhandled when I didn't actually NEED the money. I was in no way a lazy bum. I was about 18 the first time I ever panhandled, my daughter was about a year old and my husband and I had become homeless and all we had was our 72 Cutless Supreme and the highway.
We traveled the state of Florida trying to find a place to belong. But there was only one problem....we had no money. I still remember the first time, we were in Jacksonville. We had about 75 cents to our name, we were out of gas, hadnt ate in 36 hours, and we had used our last WIC check for formula. My husband pulled into a Wal-mart parkinglot and parked. We sat there looking at eachother for over 10 minutes trying to combine our thoughts on what we should do.
Without a word, my husband jumped out of the car and walked up to the first person he saw coming out of the store. He talked to them for a mear 30 secs and walked back to the car smiling. He leaned into my window and handed me a $20 bill. I was in shock. I asked him how he got it ( I thought for sure he somehow robbed the guy he was talking to), but he said that he told the guy the truth, and he gave him the money.
Now, when you are flat on your face broke, $20 is alot of money. But it wasnt enough, where were we going to sleep? So we spent about 2 hours in that parking lot asking total strangers for help and by 6pm we had over $100!
I was so happy, but still felt so much shame for what we had to do. Like some may think, we didn't run off to the nearest ghetto and buy a crack rock or run to the liquor store...we went to Wendy's and had a nice meal, bought some diapers and formula, pumped $10 in the tank and headed to the nearest motel. We were set! Well at least for the moment.
We spent hours everyday for over a week at that walmart begging for money so we could survive, and after useless attempts to find a job with no real address or permanent phone number we knew that it was time we were on our way.
We lived like this for over 2 months, different towns & different stores. We came familiar with the best way to approach people, the ones that for sure would call the cops, the ones that would give the most and which stores had the biggest fish.
I am in no way proud of what we did but you know what, I am not ashamed. The money we got from the contribution of others was spent wisely, we weren't taking advantage of people or lying to them..we were surviving.
Dumpster Monopoly
This is my first blog...I want to start by introducing myself..you can call me GPS, short for Garbage Pale Sammy. Now why would I have a name like that you ask? Because I am a proud dumpster diver. I would confess to you that I think of myself as a professional dumpster diver.
In the coming blogs I post you will read about my adventures in surviving the world by dumpster diving, panhandling and any other way I can think of. First thing you should know about me is I am a 23 year old mother of two, I'm married and I will not disclose me location for obvious reasons.
I grew up in a decent enough home, never needed to beg for anything but I was not wealthy by any means. My mom was a single woman, worked 3 jobs to keep us happy. I first learned how to make money off of other people's garbage from my grandmother. She specialized in antiques, in fact she had her own little shop. She would take me out on the weekends scowering the neighborhoods for garbage piles. We would find chairs, nic-nics and all kinds of little treasures. Sometimes they just needed a quick sanding and maybe some paint and they would end up in her shop with a $600 price tag. Oh' the good ol' days. But I grew up fast.
I didn't really start garbage hunting for myself until I was in my late teens, I had already gave birth to my first child. I started out by just driving around on garbage days and taking furniture for myself and other odds and ends. Now I make a living off of it. So many places waste useful shit, you wouldn't believe it. drug store, retail shops, thrift stores.....its a wonderland to me.
A couple years ago McDonalds was having their yearly Monopoly promotion and while I was sitting enjoying my nuggets, staring out into the parking lot it hit me like a ton of bricks...I wouldn't have to but another super-sized fry again. Me and my husband casually walked out of the restaurant and over to the brick cell that housed the dumpster..."Damnnit' it was locked". A normal person might just give up and leave, hell' a normal person would have never walked over purposely to the stinky can behind the drive through in the first place. I had my husband give me a lift and I felt like I was in a Mission Impossible movie, soundtrack playing in the background and all. I dove into the sluge filled dumpster like a champ, tearing open bag after bag. After 20 minutes I made my way back over the wall, and after a final count I had 5 free medium fries, 6 bigmacs, 8 Mcflurrys and $80 Best buy dollars...woo hoo!
So Im sure you would like to call me disgusting but its probably because you are the person who goes and spends $15 a day collecting those game pieces every year.
I have plenty of other stories, but if I told them to you now you would have no reason to come back. So for now, savor your Big'n'tasty and I will see you soon.
-GPS
In the coming blogs I post you will read about my adventures in surviving the world by dumpster diving, panhandling and any other way I can think of. First thing you should know about me is I am a 23 year old mother of two, I'm married and I will not disclose me location for obvious reasons.
I grew up in a decent enough home, never needed to beg for anything but I was not wealthy by any means. My mom was a single woman, worked 3 jobs to keep us happy. I first learned how to make money off of other people's garbage from my grandmother. She specialized in antiques, in fact she had her own little shop. She would take me out on the weekends scowering the neighborhoods for garbage piles. We would find chairs, nic-nics and all kinds of little treasures. Sometimes they just needed a quick sanding and maybe some paint and they would end up in her shop with a $600 price tag. Oh' the good ol' days. But I grew up fast.
I didn't really start garbage hunting for myself until I was in my late teens, I had already gave birth to my first child. I started out by just driving around on garbage days and taking furniture for myself and other odds and ends. Now I make a living off of it. So many places waste useful shit, you wouldn't believe it. drug store, retail shops, thrift stores.....its a wonderland to me.
A couple years ago McDonalds was having their yearly Monopoly promotion and while I was sitting enjoying my nuggets, staring out into the parking lot it hit me like a ton of bricks...I wouldn't have to but another super-sized fry again. Me and my husband casually walked out of the restaurant and over to the brick cell that housed the dumpster..."Damnnit' it was locked". A normal person might just give up and leave, hell' a normal person would have never walked over purposely to the stinky can behind the drive through in the first place. I had my husband give me a lift and I felt like I was in a Mission Impossible movie, soundtrack playing in the background and all. I dove into the sluge filled dumpster like a champ, tearing open bag after bag. After 20 minutes I made my way back over the wall, and after a final count I had 5 free medium fries, 6 bigmacs, 8 Mcflurrys and $80 Best buy dollars...woo hoo!
So Im sure you would like to call me disgusting but its probably because you are the person who goes and spends $15 a day collecting those game pieces every year.
I have plenty of other stories, but if I told them to you now you would have no reason to come back. So for now, savor your Big'n'tasty and I will see you soon.
-GPS
Surviving On Dumpsters
This is my first blog...I want to start by introducing myself..you can call me GPS, short for Garbage Pale Sammy. Now why would I have a name like that you ask? Because I am a proud dumpster diver. I would confess to you that I think of myself as a professional dumpster diver.
In the coming blogs I post you will read about my adventures in surviving the world by dumpster diving, panhandling and any other way I can think of. I will also be posting anything I care to share with you about my life. First thing you should know about me is I am a 23 year old mother of two, Im married and I will not disclose me location for obvious reasons.
I grew up in a decent enough home, never needed to beg for anything but I was not wealthy by any means. My mom was a single woman, worked 3 jobs to keep us happy. I first learned how to make money off of other people's garbage from my grandmother. She specialized in antiques, in fact she had her own little shop. She would take me out on the weekends scowering the neigborhoods for garbage piles. We would find chairs, nic-nics and all kinds of little treasures. Sometimes they just needed a quick sanding and maybe some paint and they would end up in her shop with a $600 price tag. Oh' the good ol' days. But I grew up fast.
I didnt really start garbage hunting for myself until I was in my late teens, I had already gave birth to my first child. I started out by just driving around on garbage days and taking furniture for myself and other odds and ends. Now I make a living off of it. So many places waste usefull shit, you wouldnt believe it. drug store, retail shops, thrift stores.....its a wonderland to me.
A couple years ago McDonalds was having their yearly Monopoly promotion and while I was sitting enjoying my nuggets, staring out into the parking lot it hit me like a ton of bricks...I wouldnt have to but another super-sized fry again. Me and my husband casually walked out of the restuarnt and over to the brick cell that housed the dumpster..."Damnnit' it was locked". A normal person might just give up and leave, hell' a normal person would have never walked over perpossly to the stinky can behind the drivethrough in the first place. I had my husband give me a lift and I felt like I was in a Mission Impossible movie, soundtrack playing in the background and all. I dove into the sluge filled dumpster like a champ, tearing open bag after bag. After 20 minutes I made my way back over the wall, and after a final count I had 5 free medium fries, 6 bigmacs, 8 Mcflurrys and $80 Best buy dollars...woo hoo!
So Im sure you would like to call me discusting but its probably because you are the person who goes and spends $15 a day collecting those game pieces every year.
I have plenty of other stories, but if I told them to you now you would have no reason to come back. So for now, savor your Big'n'tasty and I will see you soon.
-GPS
In the coming blogs I post you will read about my adventures in surviving the world by dumpster diving, panhandling and any other way I can think of. I will also be posting anything I care to share with you about my life. First thing you should know about me is I am a 23 year old mother of two, Im married and I will not disclose me location for obvious reasons.
I grew up in a decent enough home, never needed to beg for anything but I was not wealthy by any means. My mom was a single woman, worked 3 jobs to keep us happy. I first learned how to make money off of other people's garbage from my grandmother. She specialized in antiques, in fact she had her own little shop. She would take me out on the weekends scowering the neigborhoods for garbage piles. We would find chairs, nic-nics and all kinds of little treasures. Sometimes they just needed a quick sanding and maybe some paint and they would end up in her shop with a $600 price tag. Oh' the good ol' days. But I grew up fast.
I didnt really start garbage hunting for myself until I was in my late teens, I had already gave birth to my first child. I started out by just driving around on garbage days and taking furniture for myself and other odds and ends. Now I make a living off of it. So many places waste usefull shit, you wouldnt believe it. drug store, retail shops, thrift stores.....its a wonderland to me.
A couple years ago McDonalds was having their yearly Monopoly promotion and while I was sitting enjoying my nuggets, staring out into the parking lot it hit me like a ton of bricks...I wouldnt have to but another super-sized fry again. Me and my husband casually walked out of the restuarnt and over to the brick cell that housed the dumpster..."Damnnit' it was locked". A normal person might just give up and leave, hell' a normal person would have never walked over perpossly to the stinky can behind the drivethrough in the first place. I had my husband give me a lift and I felt like I was in a Mission Impossible movie, soundtrack playing in the background and all. I dove into the sluge filled dumpster like a champ, tearing open bag after bag. After 20 minutes I made my way back over the wall, and after a final count I had 5 free medium fries, 6 bigmacs, 8 Mcflurrys and $80 Best buy dollars...woo hoo!
So Im sure you would like to call me discusting but its probably because you are the person who goes and spends $15 a day collecting those game pieces every year.
I have plenty of other stories, but if I told them to you now you would have no reason to come back. So for now, savor your Big'n'tasty and I will see you soon.
-GPS
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