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100facesof.me

Day 21 of 100

Close-up portrait of a bearded man in a cream t-shirt against a deep blue backdrop, gazing steadily at the camera.
Day 21 / 100 Weight 355.9 (-0.6 lb) I am sick. The world can kiss my ass. Sony A7R5 50mm 1/200 f/2.8 ISO100
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Narration

I had $300 and a place to stay for two months.

I had just graduated from UC Davis, and I knew that if I stuck around Sacramento I would do nothing but get into trouble. Most of my friends hadn’t graduated yet, and it just seemed that the best idea was to get out of town.

My best friend, Bubba, had a friend that was house sitting a professor’s house in Takoma Park, MD for two months. I never realized that the dude hated me because I dated a girl he has a crush on in school, but it never really mattered. He had a fantastical story about what each person in the house was doing in Washington, DC for the summer, except me. According to him, I had no job and no prospects.

The truth is that his story about me was true. I had no job. No contacts. Nothing. Just $300 and a never say die attitude.

Bubs and I spent the first week wandering around DC. It’s an amazing city, and one that has some of the best museums in the world. All free. And air conditioned. Holy hell, was Washington hot in the summer.

After about a month, I had almost completely run out of money. I would scour the couch for change, collecting $1.57 to buy the Sunday Washington Post, which had a huge jobs section. After eating most everything left in the pantry, we would often buy a King Sized Snicker Bar and a Big Gulp at the local 7-11 and that was my daily meal.

My parents hated the fact that I went to DC with so little money, so to teach me a lesson, they refused to send me any financial help. Bubba found a job at a temp agency paying $200/week, and we quickly got one for me too. The great thing was that we got paid weekly and they had pizza along with our checks.

For the next few months, we searched for work at night, and worked temp jobs during the day. We wore ties and button up shirts and would go into office buildings dropping our resume off at each office on our days off.

Finally as the summer came to an end, Bubba got into Georgetown University to pursue a master’s degree in International Relations, and I got a job at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education paying me $19,000 a year.

We were kings.