poo poo corner: Oh, the Places I Went!

#3

You have not really lived until you have lived in your car for a summer.

Or so I told myself when faced with the prospect of doing so in the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college.

You see, I had just scored a sweet job folding and steaming endless amounts of clothes at a small independent clothing store called Cotton Basics in Noe Valley, which is an adorable little yuppie neighborhood in San Francisco. To be making a whopping eight dollars per hour to steam and fold articles of clothing seemed like a dream to me, and it was only my second official job ever. I was on my way up in the world! I loved the owner and her store manager dearly, and was thrilled to be working there. Some days, I was trusted with petty cash from the store to go get postage from the cute little old fashioned Post Office down the street. Or sometimes I would be tasked with picking up a few loaves of the delicious fresh-baked buttery bread from the bakery around the block, just because we all had a craving for it.

I remember sunny days with lots of flowers lining the streets when I went out on my little errands for the store. Everyone would be out and about with their strollers and Pug dogs and there was a neighborhood friendliness there that I had never experienced in the big city before. I felt happy and connected to the strangers around me. I was a local! It felt like I was really settling into my life in San Francisco after a whole year of college.

This all happened about a month before school ended for the summer. I had about five weeks worth of real employment before the time came to vacate the dorms. Summer is the time when all the dorm kids get kicked out for three months, only to return again in August and move back in with all the stuff they had to remove from their rooms to make room for the summer school kids. It seemed idiotic to me at the time why I could not just continue to live on campus over the summer and not attend classes but just work and have fun. Now of course, I see that logic made no sense at all. But come on, I was 18, what the hell did I know?

I had also convinced myself that my college buddy and I were going to find an apartment before school was out, so I would have nothing to worry about, housing-wise. We started looking in February, so how could we not find something by June 1st?

We did not realize we were living in San Francisco during the "dot.com" boom, and that there was only the tiniest sliver of vacancies in the city. We also did not realize that 18-year-old college students were on the low end of the "prospective renter" totem pole for most landlords in their right minds.

The last month of school flew by and suddenly I found myself with a very important decision to make: quit my brand new awesome job and move back home for three months, or stay in the city and live out of my car and the kindness of friends with couches and/or floors all summer? In my naive little mind, the latter sounded so romantic and adventurous, like I was the frigging female version of Jack Kerouac himself. Of course! I could just do that! I had a ton of friends staying in the city that summer! It would be so easy and fun!

I am sure my parents were mortified, but they were kind enough (crazy enough?) to let me learn on my own just how shitty it can be to live out of one's car. I brought all my belongings back home from the dorms, selected the things I would be bringing back with me on my summer adventure, and drove back to San Francisco, ready to live free or die hard.

The very first night, I began to realize perhaps I was not cut out for this sort of thing.

It was raining and I pulled off the freeway into the city, not really sure where to go or what to do. I only had a handful of phone numbers in my ratty old flowered address book, and this was before everyone had cell phones. I pulled into a gas station parking lot and found a pay phone to use.

The first number was busy.
The second number went to an answering machine.
The third number just kept ringing and ringing.
And so on...

I went through every single number of every single friend I had in San Francisco, and apparently no one was home. I hadn't thought this all through enough to know what to do in case that happened. How about that brilliant planning, huh?

I started to panic a little, so I also called my old boyfriend back in my hometown. He was older than me and therefore seemed like a wise soul who could comfort me and give me advice.

"I am getting worried," I said, "I can't find a place to stay tonight and it's late and I am stuck at this sketchy gas station trying to get a hold of someone I can crash with."

"You should come home," he said.

I was crying now. " I can't! I have to work tomorrow. I told them I would be there. I can't let them down. I know I can do this! I just can't get a hold of anyone right now. Should I just sleep in my car somewhere?"

"No! Are you nuts? You'll get attacked or something! Isn't there anyone else you can think of to call?"

I tried to clear my mind despite the panic and tears. Think!

"Well, there is that one girl that Lily was dating before we left for the summer...."

Lily was my close friend from high school who went away to college with me, and was safely back in our hometown now, probably having fun with all our old pals while I was crying at a gas station in the middle of the night. Why had I chosen to do this again?

"...but I barely know her, really. Except through Lily. I can't call her. That's crazy."

"What's crazy is standing alone at a pay phone in the middle of the night at a gas station in the rain," my old boyfriend pointed out. He was right. I had no choice but to reach out to anyone now.

So I contacted Lily, got the number for the girl, whose name was Jane, and called her. She picked up after just one ring. I tried to make awkward small talk before I finally just blurted out, "I'm kind of stuck without a place to stay tonight, and I was wondering if I could just stay on your floor or something? I know it's a lot to ask."

She was quiet for a moment, then she said, "Um...yeah. I mean, of course you are welcome to stay. I have to warn you, though, we have a bunch of people over and some of us are on drugs and stuff."

"Oh, yeah, that's fine. I mean, you know, I will probably just go in the corner and pass out anyway," I said. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I was asking a random acquaintance who was hosting a drug party if I could come crash on her floor. I was pathetic. And it was only the first day of this. Ugh.

I ended up going over to her apartment, which happened to be an awesome top floor penthouse unit in a high-rise building next to the college. The rumor was that a rich guy died in the unit and it was haunted. Currently, there were like 5 or 6 college kids sharing it, and it was pretty much a constant party there most nights. I had never actually been up there until tonight.

Jane answered the door for me, her brown eyes wide and pupils dilated. She giggled and explained she was on Ecstasy, then led me to her room. She had the room to herself, and she had set up a little make-shift bed for me on the floor next to hers, complete with blanket and pillow. It was so sweet of her. My eyes welled up with tears of relief.

"I felt so dumb calling you," I confessed, "I can't believe you answered the phone. I was so happy you did. I owe you for this."

She shrugged. "No big deal, I know how it is. I just hope you can sleep through all this noise!"

I finally noticed the muffled music coming through her bedroom wall from the living room. The party was in full swing out there. But I didn't care. I was so thrilled to not be sleeping in my car that night. A little music was just fine by me.

I was brave enough to go out to the living room for a bit before calling it a night. It was a huge open space with one entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the whole city. The view was breathtaking with all the city lights twinkling down below. Another wall of the living room was all mirrors, making the room feel even bigger than it already was. This was so not a college kid apartment. These kids had scored big. Someone's mom must have been a rich co-signer for sure!

I saw some friendly faces of kids from my dorm, and we chatted a little while they tripped on whatever drugs they were on. I watched them dance around to some unrecognizable hippie music and argue about philosophy for a while, before finally calling it a night and crawling into my little place on Jane's floor.

Jane herself was on her bed with another girl. I watched as they smoked some kind of white powder through a small clear pipe of some kind. I had no idea what it was they were doing, and I felt a bit like I was in an ABC After School Special or something. But I was warm and safe, and everyone (despite the drug-using) was mellow, nice, and kind to me. I considered myself lucky that night.

After that first night, it was never as rough as that again. Sure, I still had occasional afternoons where I had no where to go. Typically I would spend those afternoons driving down the Great Highway to an empty beach parking lot, and park facing the waves for a while. That would calm me.

Or sometimes, I would park in a familiar neighborhood just behind the college campus and kick my feet up on the dash, lock my car doors, and have myself a long nap in the driver's seat until someone I was staying with that night got home for the day.

It was a weird time in my life. A lesson that needed to be learned, I guess. Living like that was never easy, but it certainly had it's magical moments. I can see the appeal of just taking off on the road and living off the kindness of strangers for a while. The kindness definitely comes around. It always does. I never found myself completely screwed out of a place to crash. And the funny thing was, if I ever came close, I always called Jane. And she always answered. And the amazing penthouse was always open to me.