dirtyfacedan
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A funny read...
The Art of Living for Free :: Life :: thetyee.ca
Want to get by on almost nothing? I'm glad to share some (free) tips.
By Dorothy Woodend
Published: June 26, 2009
TheTyee.ca
A friend of my brother recently asked if he could come and stay for a little while, or at least until he'd found a place in the city. Since I had a free room, I said, "Sure, on the condition you help me fix stuff." What followed was an education, of sorts, in how to live almost free in the city. With a front row seat on the freeloader world, I thought I should take notes, as you never know when it will be your turn to cage a meal or a place to stay. Here is some of what I learned.
Rent free
First off, since rent in Vancouver is somewhere in the high stratosphere, it helps if you have someplace to stay that doesn't cost the same price as a college education once did. Many a veteran couch surfer knows the perils attached to camping out in someone else's living room. If your charm and entertainment value begin to wane, chances are, you'll be out on your vagabond bum.
House sitting is another option. The summer is an ideal time to find a place to stay for cheap, or preferably free, since people want to leave the city and need someone to water their plants and feed their fluffy kitty. If you're relatively clean and responsible, you will be passed between people, like a reliable babysitter. Keep your porno habits to a bare minimum, and your best manners on display and you can usually find accommodations.
Free food
Once you have a place to hang your hat, you can concentrate on other things, like feeding yourself. Since freeloaders are deeply opposed to paying for anything they can get for nothing, the key to eating free and well is to identify a good dumpster and keep ongoing tabs on it. At my local grocery store, whenever something is just inches past its due date, the staff places it helpfully, right on top of the dumpster. The savvy freeloader may already have cased the store to see what is just about to pack it in, and then he/or she simply waits. When newly expired stuff is carried out back, he or she simply swoops in and nabs it before real street people do.
The same is true of alleyways, and sidewalks around town. People leave out the most interesting array of free stuff. If you roam around often enough, your chances are good of finding something you can lug home. The key is eternal vigilance, and certain lack of squeamishness.
Since dumpster food is ostensibly for people who actually need it, and not for people who can afford to buy stuff, a certain lack of shame or embarassment is required. An iron stomach is also useful. Every time I am offered a piece of carrot cake, or some watermelon at my house lately, I feel the need to ask, "Is this dumpster watermelon?" "Yep!" "The best kind?" I ask. "The only kind," is the answer.
Some freeloader tricks are pretty easy. If you don't have a car, you can walk or ride your bike to and from work. Others are less obvious. If you peruse the Internet you can find all matter of discounts and bargains. For example: at certain websites someone has typed in all the codes that will get you 35 per cent off all Greyhound bus fares. If you type in the code, presto! Cheapness abounds.
It is also a good idea to have something to barter with, and I don't mean your skanky body. Everyone can pretty much cook and clean, it's also good idea to be handy. Learn how to do things, whether it's bicycle repair or fixing a leaky toilet and trade upon your skills.
I have to admit my freeloader has earned his keep, through the constant application of repair skills and general fix-it-ness. What he doesn't know, he simply looks up on the Internet. Frankly, I am often amazed at what you can learn about basic plumbing and appliance repair on YouTube. There is a veritable world of free advice out there -- everything from unblocking a sink to tiling around corners.
If you don't mind getting dirty, or bashing your fingers occasionally, you need never feel helpless again. The most curious thing about taking stuff apart, fixing it and putting it back together again is that the mystery attached to stuff disappears. Understanding how things work means you never need fear them again, and that, in itself, is something of a free gift.
Free entertainment
The Park Theatre in Vancouver offered free showings of Shark Water this past week. I went to see the film, and looked carefully around at the audience to see what the freeloaders looked like en masse. They look pretty much the same as everyone else. I suppose that is the point, stealth is a key component of the freeloader, the ability to blend in and not be noticed.
Another friend of my brother, who my brother says is the world's cheapest man, has developed the fine art of getting away with stuff by looking like he knows exactly what he's doing, and then doing it. If he wants food, he walks into a grocery store, preferably something large and anonymous, fills up his grocery cart with every conceivable food item, and then walks right out the door with it, like he's doing absolutely nothing wrong. If affecting an air of complete entitlement does fail, it's helpful to be an extremely fast runner. (Naturally The Tyee does not endorse illegal activity, but acknowledging that it does occur, well, that's fodder for most of the news, isn’t it? And so we shall do so further in this piece.)
If fleeing from a Safeway security guard doesn't sound like fun, there are plenty of other forms of free entertainment in the summer. Everything from pick-up soccer games in the park, to Car-Free days (all over Vancouver) with more free music and performances than you shake a stick at. Douglas Park also offers free family concerts on Thursday nights throughout the summer.
Free stuff
The curious thing that I have gleaned from a lengthy career as a thrift store shopper is that value is entirely in your head. Ergo: a designer frock only costs hundreds of dollars if you believe that it should do so. The vast edifice of consumer goods is kept aloft by the constant, unending application of this type of faith. (Religion has nothing on consumer culture.) But once you lose your faith, and you leave behind the mall/church, you realize that nothing is as it seems. Once a Pucci or Gucci has been reduced to the racks of Value Village, you begin to see it for what it really is, just a bit of cloth and stitches, stripped of pixie dust and the glamour of marketing.
This culture of free stuff starts to infect you almost without you noticing. It creeps into your brain on little cat feet and says, "This is overpriced, but if you really want it maybe you should just take it." I noticed it the other day, while looking at some moisturizer in London Drugs, "This stuff is too damn expensive." I thought, "Maybe I should steal it." I didn't actually steal it, but the thought was there, turning all moral rectitude on its head.
Another friend makes it a point to pocket at least one small item every time he goes to Value Village. His rationalization is that since they've jacked up their prices, they deserve it. (It does seem odd that when everyone else is slashing prices on consumer goods, the prices at the Village just keep going up.) It's a perilously thin line between cheap and free, but once you step over that line, it's difficult to go back to the straight world.
I've really only stolen a single pair of sunglasses. I just put them on my head and walked out of the store with them. Every time I look at my ill-gotten booty, I feel a singular combination of glee and guilt. It's a feeling I remember well from childhood, when stealing things was a rite of passage. As bored country kids, stealing was something we did for fun and profit. From breaking into our school, wandering the dark hallways, and taking a toy from the Kindergarten classroom, as a token of our criminal activity, or stealing coins out of the wishing well at the roadside attraction a couple of miles up the highway, or breaking into summer cabins to wander around and perhaps, take a soap dish -- stealing was a cheap thrill.
The thrill remains the same, but of course, the cost is infinitely higher when you're an adult. Unless, of course, you steal so much that you become beyond reproach. You need only to look to the financial industry to the south of us, to realize that stealing massively can often have little or no repercussions at all. If you're going to steal stuff, aim high. If you aim highest of all, you may just be able to buy an Island somewhere and live out your days on someone else's money.
Free your mind
Most social constructs are on built on sand, and if you push, even a little bit, they begin to slide. This is true for love and money. One thing I have noticed about freeloaders is that they do not usually apply the concept of ownership to people. Girlfriends and boyfriends come and go, and sex has few strings attached (unless you're into that kind of stuff).
What to make of the fact that free thinking freeloaders do not apply many rigid rules to relationships? The entire architecture of marriage, family, et cetera, often requires a tacit agreement to respect the rules. But if you suspend all normative models of behaviour and make up your own, is complete societal breakdown very far off? Probably not, since it takes a certain amount of concentrated effort to live this way. For most people, it's simply easier to do things the way they've always been done, the same way that everyone else does them. Social squeamishness is often so deeply ingrained, that it makes eating out the dumpster seem like a cakewalk.
Freedom
The free life is not without its pitfalls, but in an age of dwindling resources and growing demands, the ability to live lightly in the world may become an increasingly useful skill. The free life requires you to be resourceful, helpful, useful and above all thankful. Which doesn't actually sound all that bad.
In the immortal words of Neil Young, "Keep on rocking in the free world."
The Art of Living for Free :: Life :: thetyee.ca
Want to get by on almost nothing? I'm glad to share some (free) tips.
By Dorothy Woodend
Published: June 26, 2009
TheTyee.ca
A friend of my brother recently asked if he could come and stay for a little while, or at least until he'd found a place in the city. Since I had a free room, I said, "Sure, on the condition you help me fix stuff." What followed was an education, of sorts, in how to live almost free in the city. With a front row seat on the freeloader world, I thought I should take notes, as you never know when it will be your turn to cage a meal or a place to stay. Here is some of what I learned.
Rent free
First off, since rent in Vancouver is somewhere in the high stratosphere, it helps if you have someplace to stay that doesn't cost the same price as a college education once did. Many a veteran couch surfer knows the perils attached to camping out in someone else's living room. If your charm and entertainment value begin to wane, chances are, you'll be out on your vagabond bum.
House sitting is another option. The summer is an ideal time to find a place to stay for cheap, or preferably free, since people want to leave the city and need someone to water their plants and feed their fluffy kitty. If you're relatively clean and responsible, you will be passed between people, like a reliable babysitter. Keep your porno habits to a bare minimum, and your best manners on display and you can usually find accommodations.
Free food
Once you have a place to hang your hat, you can concentrate on other things, like feeding yourself. Since freeloaders are deeply opposed to paying for anything they can get for nothing, the key to eating free and well is to identify a good dumpster and keep ongoing tabs on it. At my local grocery store, whenever something is just inches past its due date, the staff places it helpfully, right on top of the dumpster. The savvy freeloader may already have cased the store to see what is just about to pack it in, and then he/or she simply waits. When newly expired stuff is carried out back, he or she simply swoops in and nabs it before real street people do.
The same is true of alleyways, and sidewalks around town. People leave out the most interesting array of free stuff. If you roam around often enough, your chances are good of finding something you can lug home. The key is eternal vigilance, and certain lack of squeamishness.
Since dumpster food is ostensibly for people who actually need it, and not for people who can afford to buy stuff, a certain lack of shame or embarassment is required. An iron stomach is also useful. Every time I am offered a piece of carrot cake, or some watermelon at my house lately, I feel the need to ask, "Is this dumpster watermelon?" "Yep!" "The best kind?" I ask. "The only kind," is the answer.
Some freeloader tricks are pretty easy. If you don't have a car, you can walk or ride your bike to and from work. Others are less obvious. If you peruse the Internet you can find all matter of discounts and bargains. For example: at certain websites someone has typed in all the codes that will get you 35 per cent off all Greyhound bus fares. If you type in the code, presto! Cheapness abounds.
It is also a good idea to have something to barter with, and I don't mean your skanky body. Everyone can pretty much cook and clean, it's also good idea to be handy. Learn how to do things, whether it's bicycle repair or fixing a leaky toilet and trade upon your skills.
I have to admit my freeloader has earned his keep, through the constant application of repair skills and general fix-it-ness. What he doesn't know, he simply looks up on the Internet. Frankly, I am often amazed at what you can learn about basic plumbing and appliance repair on YouTube. There is a veritable world of free advice out there -- everything from unblocking a sink to tiling around corners.
If you don't mind getting dirty, or bashing your fingers occasionally, you need never feel helpless again. The most curious thing about taking stuff apart, fixing it and putting it back together again is that the mystery attached to stuff disappears. Understanding how things work means you never need fear them again, and that, in itself, is something of a free gift.
Free entertainment
The Park Theatre in Vancouver offered free showings of Shark Water this past week. I went to see the film, and looked carefully around at the audience to see what the freeloaders looked like en masse. They look pretty much the same as everyone else. I suppose that is the point, stealth is a key component of the freeloader, the ability to blend in and not be noticed.
Another friend of my brother, who my brother says is the world's cheapest man, has developed the fine art of getting away with stuff by looking like he knows exactly what he's doing, and then doing it. If he wants food, he walks into a grocery store, preferably something large and anonymous, fills up his grocery cart with every conceivable food item, and then walks right out the door with it, like he's doing absolutely nothing wrong. If affecting an air of complete entitlement does fail, it's helpful to be an extremely fast runner. (Naturally The Tyee does not endorse illegal activity, but acknowledging that it does occur, well, that's fodder for most of the news, isn’t it? And so we shall do so further in this piece.)
If fleeing from a Safeway security guard doesn't sound like fun, there are plenty of other forms of free entertainment in the summer. Everything from pick-up soccer games in the park, to Car-Free days (all over Vancouver) with more free music and performances than you shake a stick at. Douglas Park also offers free family concerts on Thursday nights throughout the summer.
Free stuff
The curious thing that I have gleaned from a lengthy career as a thrift store shopper is that value is entirely in your head. Ergo: a designer frock only costs hundreds of dollars if you believe that it should do so. The vast edifice of consumer goods is kept aloft by the constant, unending application of this type of faith. (Religion has nothing on consumer culture.) But once you lose your faith, and you leave behind the mall/church, you realize that nothing is as it seems. Once a Pucci or Gucci has been reduced to the racks of Value Village, you begin to see it for what it really is, just a bit of cloth and stitches, stripped of pixie dust and the glamour of marketing.
This culture of free stuff starts to infect you almost without you noticing. It creeps into your brain on little cat feet and says, "This is overpriced, but if you really want it maybe you should just take it." I noticed it the other day, while looking at some moisturizer in London Drugs, "This stuff is too damn expensive." I thought, "Maybe I should steal it." I didn't actually steal it, but the thought was there, turning all moral rectitude on its head.
Another friend makes it a point to pocket at least one small item every time he goes to Value Village. His rationalization is that since they've jacked up their prices, they deserve it. (It does seem odd that when everyone else is slashing prices on consumer goods, the prices at the Village just keep going up.) It's a perilously thin line between cheap and free, but once you step over that line, it's difficult to go back to the straight world.
I've really only stolen a single pair of sunglasses. I just put them on my head and walked out of the store with them. Every time I look at my ill-gotten booty, I feel a singular combination of glee and guilt. It's a feeling I remember well from childhood, when stealing things was a rite of passage. As bored country kids, stealing was something we did for fun and profit. From breaking into our school, wandering the dark hallways, and taking a toy from the Kindergarten classroom, as a token of our criminal activity, or stealing coins out of the wishing well at the roadside attraction a couple of miles up the highway, or breaking into summer cabins to wander around and perhaps, take a soap dish -- stealing was a cheap thrill.
The thrill remains the same, but of course, the cost is infinitely higher when you're an adult. Unless, of course, you steal so much that you become beyond reproach. You need only to look to the financial industry to the south of us, to realize that stealing massively can often have little or no repercussions at all. If you're going to steal stuff, aim high. If you aim highest of all, you may just be able to buy an Island somewhere and live out your days on someone else's money.
Free your mind
Most social constructs are on built on sand, and if you push, even a little bit, they begin to slide. This is true for love and money. One thing I have noticed about freeloaders is that they do not usually apply the concept of ownership to people. Girlfriends and boyfriends come and go, and sex has few strings attached (unless you're into that kind of stuff).
What to make of the fact that free thinking freeloaders do not apply many rigid rules to relationships? The entire architecture of marriage, family, et cetera, often requires a tacit agreement to respect the rules. But if you suspend all normative models of behaviour and make up your own, is complete societal breakdown very far off? Probably not, since it takes a certain amount of concentrated effort to live this way. For most people, it's simply easier to do things the way they've always been done, the same way that everyone else does them. Social squeamishness is often so deeply ingrained, that it makes eating out the dumpster seem like a cakewalk.
Freedom
The free life is not without its pitfalls, but in an age of dwindling resources and growing demands, the ability to live lightly in the world may become an increasingly useful skill. The free life requires you to be resourceful, helpful, useful and above all thankful. Which doesn't actually sound all that bad.
In the immortal words of Neil Young, "Keep on rocking in the free world."
