The Scrounge

I have 3 or 4 friends that I have kept since childhood (that are not incarcerated): The Scrounge is one of them. Since we were children, Scrounge would pop up on my doorstep, trying to lure me into one of her schemes of debauchery. Being the Model Citizen that I am, I always tried to resist The Scrounge's attempts to lure me away from home and hearth, but I would usually gave in, and off we would go. Part of her allure was that The Scrounge was always so sophisticated, wearing this one beautiful red jumpsuit .. for about 7 years, with Hair & Makeup at perfection every day. I would brush teeth and hair, wash my face, & be ready to roll at 10 AM - Scrounge would still be troweling on makeup at 1! (If I has only purchased stock in Maybelline back then!) But even though we seemed outwardly Sophisticated and Modern, we were often so broke we could not afford to pay attention. In fact, most of our Adventures were centered on 'making enough money for smokes and diapers', which we were constantly in need of. We tried Home Decorators, but they had security escort us from the party. Then we were going to strip tobacco, but no one would hire us, because we looked too shifty and had a carload of kids and dogs screeching the driveway. (For years our attempts at employment were never successful, till someone told us to leave the kids someplace and not park our car where possible employers might see it.) Then one day we hit on it - we would have a yard sale at The Scrounge's parents house! I had only been in the house twice, because any friend of Scrounge's must be ,, up to no good. Anyhow, we loaded up everything we could find in my station wagon and got ready to make some cash! Our big money maker was this roll of green carpet - can't remember where we got it, but it was HUGE, and weighed a ton! We finally managed to roll it up and tie it to the top of the car and headed into Bowling Green to Mom's house. At the time, we had to drive thru the unsavory part of town, with thugs on every corner, eyeing us as we sped past, drool dripping off their chins at the sight of 2 Sophisticates and their Nifty Carpet. We made it in record time, and began to unload our treasures - then it dawned on us - no carpet!How we could have lost half a ton of neon shag carpet is a mystery to this day, but the Scrounged swore later that 8 square blocks of 'bad side of the tracks' had new carpet in every room, including dog houses. Anyway, since ciggs were only, like, $1 a pack, we were able to scrap up enough to make it thru the weekend.. which gave us 7 days to figure out next weeks scheme! :-)