Day 4 — The day after my first day sleeping at work was rough. I was sure this wasn’t going to last. I had a miserable headache all day, my body was sore, and I knew this was all a bad idea that I was now forced into. I was a bad coworker that day, but I think it was excused because it was Monday. I also realized when I woke up that I left my computer in my rental car, which was at my temporary corporate apartment, so I tried hitching a ride there on a work-bound bus. Apparently they only go to work in the mornings, and don’t make round trips. I found that odd, but it was a good thing my car/house was here. I’d just drive that to my apartment and grab my laptop bag, drive my rental car back, since it does better in traffic (it doesn’t smoke), then get a bus from work back to my apartment that evening, and drive my other car/house back to work to sleep for the night. What a complicated scheme. It hurt my head to organize it, but it ended up working out. So now I had both of my cars at work. The rental car I had to return in a week though, so I wouldn’t have two cars in a week. And my apartment’s lease was up at the end of the month, so that would go away soon too. I’d soon have no choice but to live in my car. I decided to rent the temporary apartment place out on Airbnb in the meantime. Considering I was living in my car, I might as well make a few more bucks by doing it.
That morning, I had to use the bathroom really badly, so looking for an outfit in my piles of mixed up clothes was not a pleasant experience. I needed to get my clothes organized. So I put my pants in one pile, my shirts in one pile, my underwear and socks in another pile, and threw all my coats into a final heap furthest from the trunk door, next to the passenger’s-side, back-right door, which doesn’t open, making it really convenient for shoving things up against it. I would need hangers for my nicer, button-down shirts, so I decided to make a run to Wal-mart on the way back to work.
When I got to Wal-mart and parked, I noticed the car I parked next to was packed tight with clothes, a guitar, and lots of knick-knacks. It was a hard sight to see, and I immediately knew how wrong my experiment of being homeless could go. I’m not much of a collector, but I decided when I saw this that I couldn’t let my possessions get out of control, and needed to stay organized. I went inside, waded through far too many people for a Monday night, ended up browsing the camping section, where I picked up a knife because “You’ll get upset with yourself if you don’t have this when someone tries breaking in”, picked up some rope to tie my curtains back when not in use, searched forever but finally found a hole punch to secure the rope to the curtains, and got my hangers. I had 9 items so I stood in the 10 Items or Less line, and naturally was behind 2 people who both had far more than 10 items. They were scolded by the cashier, I bought my items, and hurried to my car to drive to work, to go to sleep.
I smelled bad, so I tried out the work showers for the first time. Not bad. And now I was freshly showered for the first time in four days, so that felt pretty good. And then I began night 2 of sleeping at work. I was much more at ease this night, since I had 2 aspirin a bit earlier, and I was generally more comfortable with sleeping in my car. I hung my nice shirts, checked every possible crack that someone could peak through, took off my clothes, and went to sleep, determined to sleep well this night.
I did. I woke up exactly at nine o'clock in the morning, peed in a water bottle, picked out an outfit easily, opened the back left door (this is essentially my front door), and started on my 20-foot commute to work.