Money Matters

I Get Some Money
One of my readers, who I won't embarrass here, wired money, and I was able to pick it up yesterday, even though I had only a jail ID. The person wasn't given the option of using a "test question," in lieu of ID when at their website. This is unfortunate for the fact that the question would have been amusing, I'm sure.
I was nervous about going into the Food Tiger with only jail ID and trying to pick up money. Nothing says "you can trust me" like the mug staring at you from one of those cards. The guy behind the Western Union counter looked a lot like my friend who wired the money. I felt like I could talk bass fishing with him, but chose not to because I don't know the first thing about bass fishing.
I began to explain the situation about the test question, and the guy turned out to be cool and went ahead and gave me the money because I knew the city of origination, and everything. He told me that what I put down as the "expected amount" was off. I was pleasantly surprised to be off in that direction. "He's a good friend, said the man working the Western Union at the Food Tiger. "Yeah," I replied. This dissolved some internal conflicts I was having over having to make choices about what is most important and prudent to use the money on, and what could be left out.
I immediately encountered the discount bin, after pocketing the money. There were bottles of sesame oil, reduced to 1 dollar each. I had to buy all three. For the benefits of sesame oil, from everything to preventing athletes foot, to giving you your daily dose of vitamin E, see Dr. Deepak Chopra's work.

It's Regularly Five-Something A Bottle

My pack got a couple pounds heavier.
I began to lug the oil (et al.) back to town. At the first little store I came to, a man tried to sell me crack.
A little further up the road, a man tried to sell me pot.
Once I got to the Shell station, a young guy walked over and offered me 7 cans of warm beer for 5 bucks. Being the consummate investor that I am, I took advantage of the savings, and speculted in the warm cans of Keystone Light market. I figured, that if I lived long enough, I would probably eventually consume at least 7 cans of Keystone Light, and I would have to pay more than 5 bucks for them.
My pack got a few pounds heavier.
A car pulled up to me at one point and the occupants asked me if I wanted some food, then handed me a bag containing two things of bologna, a bottle of mustard, a pound of cheese and a loaf of bread.
I trudged back to the graveyard, loaded to the gills with booty, costly oil; warm Keystone Light, fine mustard....after having woke up that morning with $6.11, and no smokes. It was still heavy this morning.
I woke up at 6:30 and then went to get my hard boiled egg at the Presbyterian church.
When I took out my cigarettes, Thomas could do nothing but sit there and turn an even brighter shade of pink. He knew better than to ask me for one. He is one of those who broke off contact with me after my arrest. He didn't even ask me for my version of the story, and would walk past me without even saying anything at all.
The paper printed a retraction a couple days ago; one that I am going to print out and hand to select individuals, hoping to shut them up.
Throughout the whole ordeal, I lost at least a dozen "good friends."
I Buy Socks
This morning, I bought 3 pairs of socks at CVS, for a buck a pair, 50 cents a foot. I chose brown one's because the white ones wind up being pretty brown anyways; and not a pretty brown..
I want to invest the money, rather than merely spend it.
Things that I am considering::
Replacement ID
Cost: $18.50
Investment Quotient: "10"
With the potential to pay for itself thousands of times over, the ID gets the nod as probably the best use of under 20 bucks. (funny that it wasn't the first thing I thought of, though). If it is true that there is actually work out there, the ID could be huge.
I will just need to send off to mom, to ask her to send me a copy of my birth certificate, and go through all that paperwork crap again.
Harmonica Holder: A one of those things like Bob Dylan uses to hold a harmonica so that one can play the guitar and the harmonica simultaneously. I refer to the instrument as a until-you-remember-the-next-lyric-onica, because you can huff on the thing while you repeat the chords on the guitar until you get enough oxygen in you bloodstream to hopefully jog your memory of stuff you wrote earlier that day.
Cost: $17.50
Investment Quotient: "9" (out of 10)
The Investment Value, might probably be elucidated by a little story:
"I'll give you guys (Larry and I) one piece of advice, said "Captain Boogie," a Saint Augustine, Florida street musician, who regularly made over 100 bucks on a busy night. He then held up a harmonica and said "As soon as I added this to my act, my tips doubled over night. People like the way a guitar and a harmonica blend together." So, there you have it, from Captain Boogie himself.
I took Captain Boogie's words to heart, and have carried them with me, through all these months that I have had enough money to get a harmonica holder...or beer and cigarettes... and have postponed the purchase of the harmonica holder.
By the way, Captain Boogie, last I heard was finally out of jail after he attacked a cop with a shovel. I remember the night of that incident. I saw the Captain, walking purposefully towards the police station, holding a shovel in his right hand. Then, I didn't see him again, but heard what had happened. So, I am considering getting a shovel, er, I mean a harmonica holder for $17.50. If it truly does double my income overnight, then it will pay for itself every 2 or 3 hours, over and over.
Plus, if I am inspired by the thing to poke fun at Mr. Dylan and do parodies of his stuff, this could lead to a more than doubling of my income overnight. I'm thinking "U-Tube, Most Downloaded Video of the Year,' type of success;. provided I can keep my shovel in check...
A New Guitar? As an investment, a new guitar is hard to justify in the sense that I don't think that I have suffered the loss much tip money because of the sound of the Jasmine guitar that I am now playing. I DO notice that, on open mic nights, when I go on after some rich spoiled brat singer/songwriter with a 2,000 dollar Taylor guitar, I usually have to distract the audience with some patter as I adjust the guitar to the mike, so that they become inured to the sound of the Jasmine, and  the drop off isn't so drastic.
Investment quotient: "3" (out of 10)
The Jasmine really only put me out about 40 bucks, as I recall. It has helped me learn invaluable lessons about how to tweak guitars and adjust one's playing style to compensate for a guitar that is not a 2,000 dollar Taylor.
There are guitars right there at Guitar Center, for under 150 bucks that sound better than my Jasmine. They must have figured out how to make guitars better and cheaper, using silicon chips and robots, or something.
If I do get a new guitar, I will definitely have to protect the investment with a hard shell case. Accept no substitutions. The thing can almost double as a suitcase, given all the other stuff you can cram into it besides the guitar. As someone who is often in a situation which involves being rained upon, a waterproof, hard shell case would hold an investment quotient of "9" (out of 10).
I also won't have to worry as much about being hit by a car, . Plus, hard shell cases are the choice of train-hoppers everywhere.
A Big Backpack
Cost $80-$120
Investment Quotient: "4"
A Big backpack as an investment falls more into the category of a preventative security measure. If I have all my stuff in my pack, then it will be right there with me and not being rifled through, by the likes of Thomas, while I am on the street making money which is destined to go to replace whatever he, or his ilk, take.
The downside of carrying around everything you own is that everything you own gets heavy. Ironically, you want it to get heavy as a sign of accumulation of wealth, and the added exercise of toting it all is beneficial. It's also nice to always have your nail clippers on you, but towards the end of the day when your back is tired and you have another mile to walk, it's hard not to be thinking things like "Do I really need three different fragrances of hair conditioner??"
The backpack would facilitate things like hopping the train to New Orleans, making a killing (or not) and then hopping on the train back to Mobile, or anywhere.
MP3 Player:
Cost: $50.
Investment quotient "2"
Having 2,000 songs available for listening at the touch of a button, could only mean that the next time someone comes up to me when I'm playing and asks "Do you know any [insert name of any band that you have never heard of, here]?" I will be able to plug into a computer and check out that, or any other band that I get inundated with requests for. If I like them, I might learn the songs, which will be as simple as hearing them a few times, uninterrupted. Then, I'll be ready for those requests and increase my income about 10 percent.
*note: getting a job, any job, would increase my income 200 percent, but that would be too much like the dog wagging the tail, which is unfamiliar to me.
A Bike?
Cost $50

Quotient: "7"
A bike would be a great investment, but only provided that I had decided to stay in Mobile. It would increase the range of where I might live, allowing me to escape the urban sprawl where things come up missing. I could worry a lot less about it. It would save me money on food, because I could cook on a fire, thereby saving money over "prepared" foods. And it could potentially expand the list of jobs that I might get hired on to, given that I have "transportation."

This list is by no means comprehensive.