Note: This is not as funny as most of the stories, but it is a rarely told tale of a true experiment I performed. I am posting this story as a reaction to anyone who thinks I am in any way, shape, or form, "spoiled"

May 2006

It all started with a Strokes concert. April 27th, 2006. I am calling the band out actually because it was a great show, and the beginning of a two-week run towards my graduation from college where I was officially a broke motherfucker. Sometime after the Strokes show I went to the merch booth to purchase a T-shirt or something (Note: In my late college years I was a consumer whore, buying any sort of ticket, T-shirt, DVD, or movie ticket which struck my fancy. I don't do that anymore, because it was this kind of spending mentality which led to the upcoming crisis). I paid by debit card. I recieved my tour T-shirt.

Then, a huge crush of fans poured out of the show, just as I remembered that the vendor had forgot to give me back my card. I tried to fight my way back to the merch booth, but the onslaught of fans coming in the opposite direction was just too much to handle. NOOOO! My debit card was just lost in the crowd. Making it even worse, that ATM card was the ONLY FUCKING SOURCE of liquid cash I had at the time, and would be my only source of currency, save an overbalanced credit card. I checked back with the event staff lost and found the next day. Nothing. Two days later. Nothing. FUCK! And it was just my luck that my bank did not have a branch within 200 miles of school. So no way I could get my ATM replaced before graduation.

For the previous three and a half years of school, I had relied primarily on "Convenience Points" for survival needs. They were spend-anywhere-on-campus dollars I could use to get food, buy textbooks, and other campus-only purchases. Sure I could survive for two weeks on those, but there was one problem. They would only be a valid for two more days, until the end of classes.

And even more importantly, Senior Week was coming up. A series of bar nights, boat cruises, billiard nights, pub crawls, and every other possible kind of celebration imaginable for a college graduate. And yes, these would cost a lot of money. So what did I do? In the two days remaining with Convenience Points, I scrapped together all the food I could until all the Points were gone. Then in the following week, I went to every bookstore, record shop, and magazine depot imaginable in the Boston area until every single CD, unused DVD, book, magazine, and electrical appliance I had in my possession was sold for a small sum. This required a lot of bargaining, going well out of my way to find these stores, and just, yeah more bargaining.

I could have bummed a bus ride home and grabbed a replacement card and some cash. But fucking hell, this was the last two weeks I would ever spend as a student and individual, so why waste time at home? I was determined to push myself, for once in my life, to the outer limits of broke-ass-ness, and see if I could still enjoy Senior Week. This next week I would live like a hobo and live like a king at the same time. Unbekownst to everyone else, this next week would make me a legend.

I only got like 40 dollars from all these book/DVD/magazine-selling efforts. 20 of those were spent on my friend's upcoming Senior Week kickoff toga party, with a five hour open bar. Usually in college, I would DHV the toga scene, but this was possibly my last chance, so I went all-out. I was 21 and having one of the relatively great times of my life, so why the hell not.

I went to a certain department store and bought a linen sheet with the remainder of the cash I had left. By the end of this party, the sheet had all sorts of mud, beer stains, and floor filth on it. Of course I could not return it the way it was, so I had to do some careful positioning. I stuffed the sheet back into its case, with the only side resembling whiteness up front so it was the side seen, and with all the filth and gunk just below view. The cashier was dumb enough to fall for it, and gave me a full refund in cash for my "toga". Just wait til they sell that shit back to some loser!

Next up was the 1980s Attire Boat Cruise, which fortunately I had paid for before the Strokes theft. But it was also just my luck that the cruise had a strict NO Credit Cards policy. At the time I barely had enough cash to buy even a single beer. So besides having to endure the excruciating ear torture of a boatful of girls singing along to 80s songs at the tops of their lungs, I had to give up my drinking habit while everyone else was getting shit-faced. Hard enough. But even harder, there was a round of bars and after-parties later on. Which, for the most part, I tried to abstain from opening massive tabs at, knowing greater celebrations were to come. Which meant I couldn't even celebrate, save a full bottle of beer I just found laying around. Poor bastard. No, I'm talking about myself

The next night, I DHVed going to the big Senior Ball to watch a very bad mainstream movie. A decision I regret to this day, given that event could very easily have been crashed. But getting all dressed up and listening to umm, let me guess, Bon Jovi and Journey for the second night in a row, well that was not necessarily my scene. So what if it was the last week of college, it's not like I gave a shit about most of these kids anyway.

The next night was Thursday, and I was on the home stretch. Just three more nights til I graduate, my family comes up, and I can be moved back home to NY and ATM card replacement relief. And that was the night of the big Senior Pub Crawl. Every person I could have possibly known in the last 4 years would be out at some point that night, so I went all-out to every single bar on the itinerary, and amassed several hundreds of dollars in tabs on my overbalanced credit card. God only knows what the balance was for this month, but for reasons I won't get into here, and wouldn't find out til much later, it wasn't my problem.

But, I did not have a single dollar to tip, so this would become an exercise of a process my friend "Phase" refers to as Reservoiring in its purest form. Meaning grab your drinks and bounce. A couple of the bartenders were OK with it, because they were seniors themselves and getting just as drunk as us, but by the time I reached the final bar it was an absolute shitshow in the purest definition. Filled to the gills with almost-blacked-out college seniors.

I was no exception. My speech was slurring, my vision was a blur, and I don't even remember many of the random and awkward people I ran into. But one thing I do remember is this. The final bartender was not very receptive of the fact that I couldn't tip her, especially after more than 30 bucks worth of drinks. Whatever. I think I grabbed my tab from her, gave her the finger, and ran off, or something like that. Fuck her, I was a street survivor!

The next day, Friday, I was able to completely steal three hours of free champagne through this pre-graduation reception/ champagne toast. The reception had like a 40 dollar cover, but who the fuck cares? I Demonstrated Higher Value. I just walked right in like I owned the place. Everyone else was wearing prom or dress attire, and most kids had their parents there. Meanwhile I had a Maiden T-shirt and shorts. No one cared, and the champagne-pourers didn't say shit. They did their jobs and I got drunk. I was passed out by 8PM.

Saturday was rather uneventful, except for almost burning down my apartment building while overheating a pizza in my piece-of-shit oven. But that's for another story. Sunday came; I graduated and was home free. Looking back on this two week span, it was one of the greatest things I have ever done, and proved that I could make make a great story out of literally nothing. When you look at pictures taken of me during this week, it looks like everything is going great, and everyone thought I was having a great time just like them. And believe me I was. But no one could have ever known that among these successful and graduating college seniors there was a real life hobo.