How to Live in a Gated Community – for FREE!

The older I get the more I realize how much time I have left to live, or, more accurately, how much time I don’t have left to live. I wasn’t worried about dying when I reached 50. I figured I could possibly live to be 100 and therefore had lived only half my life. Even 60 didn’t bother me, but by 62, the first “retirement” age, I started thinking about my options. Where would I live if I couldn’t keep the home where I’m now living?

Since I felt backed into a corner, I decided to sell first and think about the consequences later. I could do that, because I’m 62 and old people are notorious for not thinking about consequences.

I put my home up for sale for lots of reasons, really. For one thing 2,000 sq. feet is way too big for me. Another problem is that I can no longer mow the lawn because of my bad back. Also shoveling the driveway takes me all day, not to mention that it, too, hurts my back (OK, so I mentioned it anyway), so moving appears to be my only option.

After I placed my home on craigslist, I looked at one of those housing websites that tell you how much home you can afford to buy, based on your income. I get social security, so I plugged my monthly income into the free calculator and fell through some sort of time warp. I saw an impossible figure I couldn’t understand. Had I lost my mind? Had I lost my sight? Was I on Earth anymore? What I was looking at had to be a mistake. So I entered my figures again. And again.

And each time, I felt my heart tighten a little. I’M GOING TO DIE RIGHT HERE, seated at my computer, watching my future home disintegrate in front of my eyes. That can’t be right! Do they even make homes that cost $27,000? So I looked at other housing sites thinking that the calculator had to be wrong on the original site. But they all said the same thing.

So in a frantic search for alternative housing, I found some very odd possibilities – corn cob homes, for instance. I would have to eat a lot of corn and it might take me awhile, but I figured that was doable. And then I found homes made of straw bales, but then I remembered the story of the 3 little pigs and I really didn’t want to contend with the big bad wolf blowing down my house. Hemp was another option, but I was afraid people would try to smoke my home.

So I continued my search. And I found – nothing.

Well, not nothing actually. If I took low-cost cruises for the rest of my life, I could afford to live. I’d have to move around a lot, but I don’t mind moving, and I really like water. Then again, moving all the time might get boring after a while.

Another option I discovered amazed me! If I commit a crime, I can be housed, fed, and clothed for FREE, and depending on the crime, I could be housed, fed, and clothed for the rest of my life. I like comfortable clothes. This could work. But I would have to compromise – wardens don’t allow laptops in prison.

Now I have another problem – to figure out what type of crime I can commit that would guarantee me a lifetime of free housing, food, and clothing, that would allow me to bring my laptop with me, but that wouldn’t require me to kill anybody. Don’t suggest Alcatraz. It’s surrounded by water, but it’s closed. And don’t suggest a Russian prison. I don’t know how to speak the language.

Oh, who am I kidding? What I really should do is stand on a busy street corner and collect pennies from traveling motorists. Or, and this makes more sense, I can post a link to a site that pays me pennies to write for them. I call it my Stay Out of Prison Fund.

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