Thread: The cookie story

I hadn't eaten for three days, thanks to the problems I've discussed in the so-called principles thread. So, I was hungry. I don't qualify for any kind of aid, since I'm a foreigner here in New Zealand, and the food bank won't give me food since I don't have an address (I'm sleeping in my car). I hadn't quite resorted to selling my laptop at the Cash Converters or begging for alms in the street, due to a combination of pride and anger at myself. I was getting close, though.

It was raining and a couple degrees above freezing, as all climates are wont to be when you're in such a state. You can't be suffering and have the sun all warm and shining, after all. It just ain't right. I was walking aimlessly around town at a kind of loping, disgruntled pace when I passed a Subways. For those of you who don't know what Subways is, it's a place that prepares giant sandwiches with all the works for a slightly less than exorbitant price. Anyway, it's awesomeness if you want to eat just once a day at the cost of feeling all fat and miserable for a few hours after you eat a foot-long sub.

A thought suddenly occurred to me. Hadn't I been using the Subway card whenever I ate at this place, a card that collects a few cents from the meals I purchase and after a dozen or so meals, I can use the 'money' on it to reduce the cost of my next meal or better yet: eat for 'free'? I quickly looked in my pockets and lo, there it was. The subway card.

Overjoyed, I strode into the restaurant and asked the young girl behind the cash register to check how much 'money' I had on the card. A few seconds later, she said: "You have $2.73." Of course, I wasn't fooled. I actually had $2.70, because they don't have pennies here in New Zealand and round up/down accordingly. However, after looking at the menu, I could buy 3 cookies for $2.60 and still have ten cents left on the card.

"I'll have 3 chocolate cookies please," I told the girl.

She shrugged and bagged up the cookies, placing them on the counter. I gave her my card again and kept my eye on those cookies. My mouth anticipated the sugar to come and was salivating at this point.

A few seconds go by and then the girl looks up at me while I'm staring at the cookies. "Oh," she says. "You want to use the balance on your card?"

"Of course I do, you idiot," I said, though without the idiot part. The cookies were making me behave myself.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said. "You have to have at least three dollars on your card before you can use it."

"What?" I said. "That's nonsense. And I'm hungry. Please use the balance on my card."

"I can't," she said. "It's the rules. And I can't override the system. It won't come up unless you have three dollars or more. There's nothing I can do."

"Please?" I said with my bestest, saddest puppy eyes.

"Sorry," she shrugged. Then she took the cookies away.

I walked out of the place a little... embittered, you could say. Not only would I not eat anything for the rest of the day, except for toothpaste maybe, but it was just another example of how operational protocols on these systems reduce the people who use them to little more than babbling automatons.

This was two days ago. Since then, I have earned enough money by selling hand-written poetry (accompanied by an extended bottom lip) out on the street to afford a meal at a nearby fish and chips shop.

I have heard of people wandering the world on their wits alone, as you are doing. I don't have the intestinal fortitude to do that.

I don't know if I'd refer to it as intestinal fortitude or something a little more realistic, like sheer stupidity. Ah well.

It's strange, though, how life can fluctuate so quickly. Here I was a few days ago, whining about cookies, and then today..., well, it seems that I've come into a little more money. My grandfather passed away a few months ago, following my grandmother who died a couple years ago, and my parents have inherited a small fortune from them. I'm not 'next for the throne,' as it were, since my little sister would inherit first, once my parents buy the farm (hopefully many years from now), but my parents have somehow developed a sixth sense as far as my financial turbulence goes. They know that I hate eating free lunches or being helped unless I really, really need it (which is basically when I'm a foot away from death's door, in my mind), but they've already helped my two sisters out with some of their financial problems and thought it would only be fair if they sent me at least a little money - something to use in case I needed to leave the country really quickly or wanted to watch every single movie that was playing in the local theater all in one day.

Anyway, I'm better off now. I've eaten my cookies and don't have to face quite so much pressure taking this life so seriously and dire-like.

When I was in the Marine Corps, there was about a year when I went through great lengths to kind of be like you. The military has a thing called “You, you, and you labor”. What this is, is that there is some project going on on base. They come in the barracks and just grab people. Nevermind that it’s your day off. Nevermind that you only get five days off a month-you, you, and you are going to work.

I would get up at 5 a.m. on my days off. Like a ninja, I would slip into the ethers of the sunrise. Believe it or not, several times, they got angry at me for doing this. But, where is a Marine to go in a situation like this ? I would go into a park, find a secluded spot, and doze for an hour or two. Then I would go to a Denny’s for breakfast. They would bum rush you out the second your meal was done. Anyway, McDonald’s had just started opening for breakfast about then. I would get a paper and read until about ten. About then, the theaters would open. Then, I could have a full day, making sure not to return to the base until past 6:30 p.m.

When I was 16-17 years old, I thought it would be the best thing in my life to go into the Air Force. I wanted to fly F-15 Cs. I had my pilot's license, was playing Jane's F15 simulator every day after school/sports/work, and was pretty much obsessed with all things military. As was my friend, who wanted to go into the Marines. We would spend hours behind his house in the forest hunting each other with slingshots and paint balls. Other factors contributing to my decision was that my grandfather was in the Air Force. He trained pilots during WW2 on 30 different aircraft, although he never went overseas himself. He also built and raced single-seater biplanes, and won several competitions.

It was a good thing I was rejected from the Academy. I had everything in order except the class standing of 51%. I needed to be 50% and above. It's silly, though, because I was taking advanced classes and getting Bs while everyone else was focused about getting good grades and taking classes like Cooking or Home-Economics. I still could have gotten appointed had I wanted, because my grandfather was also close friends with Bob Dole. But, by that time I was dating a girl - in love, as one can be at so young an age - and I followed her to the state university (she was a year older, so already studying there). I could have gone the ROTC route, but my thoughts were geared towards architecture, and I was becoming increasingly harder to control, meaning that I didn't necessarily agree with all my teachers.

Apparently my friend who did end up joining the Marines also developed such tendencies. He didn't like being treated like cannon fodder. He left as soon as his contract was up.

I'm going to turn this a bit on you. In 2009 I had an affair with a beautiful young woman. Over the months, I found that she had the vocal range of Mariah Carey, could hold her own with anyone (including the pro's) on Dancing With The Stars, and she had the charisma and organizational skills to run a four star hotel. Instead, she was fascinated with the gangsta lifestyle and she almost exclusively hung out with people who will spend their lives in and out of the Department of Corrections. She rarely worked, although she labored to scam people. Our relationship ended when she tried to scam me. The bottom line was that she had Narcisstic Personality Disorder.

You are a smart guy and very capable. Like Jill, you choose not to apply yourself. People like you and Jill make me sigh.

I came from a dirt poor background. I literally lived in a dirt house as a kid. That experience has made me bust my butt all my life to have the little that I do have. We both have principles, but there is an air of entitlement in your priciples.

Google Narcisstic Personality Disorder.

I think there is an air of entitlement in my principles, although I try not to let it affect me. Not all of us are privileged with shitty childhoods, something we can use as a baseline to say "look what I achieved!" as we recount our rags-to-riches story that every true-blood American loves for some reason. I think I started somewhere around the middle class comfort zone and have been working my way down since.

I didn't apply myself back then, thanks in large part to the fact that I hadn't had to struggle much. I started work at 15, and have paid for every luxury since. There were a few times in my life that I had to ask my parents for money, but they know I like to earn my own fare so they try not to interfere.

I do apply myself now, just not in a conventional fashion. I have never been writing as much in the past as I have been these past six months. I think that, in time, my efforts will pay off.

I do not have Narcissistic Personality Disorder.