My parents call me a bum.
- My sister told me I was an opportunist and that I was cheap.
My brother warned me that eventually I would run out of friends. I just thought of myself as being smart. As long as I had friends willing to let me crash on their sofas or in their spare rooms, why should I waste money on an apartment? I had been doing this for almost a year, when I thought I needed to be a bit more smart about where I crashed. I had stayed in one friend’s apartment for almost a week before I decided it was time to move on. They all smoked and the air quality was so bad that I could see the smoke swirling in the air even when the lights were turned off. Another friend has cats. Those cats were everywhere. Her air quality reeked of cat feces and there was hair on everything. I knew I would never return to their homes. I did stay in one apartment for almost a month before they told me it was time to start paying rent. I was in the spare bedroom. The air quality was pure and sweet smelling. The heating and air conditioning was amazing. I almost thought about paying rent and staying there for a while, but I’m not into paying for a bed. Then I stayed with my little brother. He had just had a new HVAC system installed. He told me from the get go that I could stay there for a couple of weeks, but when he got married, it was my cue to leave. He wasn’t going to let his lazy brother lounge around when he brought his new bride home.