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When I tell people I used to be homeless I always get attacked with questions. The most popular is “what was the worst part?”. The answer? There are no bathrooms. If you have to take a crap you have to search high and low for a place that doesn't care that you'll never buy something from them.
You probably don't realize how good you have it until you have to frantically search for a public bathroom at three in the morning. Those bathrooms were a treasure cove. The best part is that after you did your thing you could use the sink to take a "whores bath", basically a sponge bath using the tiny amount of soap in the dispenser. You could also wash your change of clothes (which were kept secure in your backpack of course). All this was made even more interesting because I have OCD and being clean is the most important thing in the world to me.
After people get bored of the standard homeless questions I always get this one: what do you remember most about being homeless? This is also easy to answer. I remember the day I scammed a scammer.
I thought it would be easy to go a mere 24 hours without using anything electronic. This included my laptop, my cell phone, television, movies, microwave, everything. The only exception was lights so I could read once it got dark out. But it wasn’t what happened.
I almost cracked a few minutes after waking up in the morning. I passed by my laptop on the way to the bathroom and it called to me like a long lost lover. All I had to do was lean over and push that little ON button. Then I would have my e-mail, my news sites, twitter and more. It took a few seconds to get control of myself and continue my trip to the bathroom – where I encountered my cell phone sitting there and staring at me like I was neglecting it. I felt like an addict. It got worse, it got way worse.
