Stuff I Ain't Got and Still Don't Care.

Mom and I never discussed anything of consequence.
She called me in the car or when I was having a dump.

I know we’re supposed to stay focused on the positive, but I am. Really.

Sometimes it’s important to take a minute and think about what we ain’t got, and I don’t know; maybe even celebrate it a little.

I don’t have a cell phone. Why in the hell would I have a cell phone that I might use once a week? When the only one that ever called me was my mother, usually when I was in the car or taking a dump. We never discussed anything of consequence.

I don’t even know what it costs to run a cell phone these days. I simply don’t care.

I don’t have an alarm clock or a calendar. Think about that one for a while.

I don’t have a laptop, a tablet, an iPad, or an iPod. I never have to lose the charger or the cord, which oddly enough costs as much as the rest of the unit put together—all that copper, apparently. Copper is a precious metal.

The actual phones are mostly silicon and plastic, rubber, and bits of lower priced metals. I don’t have a game-box, neither do I have a big-screen TV with theatre surround sound with enhanced bass.

Vacuum cleaners suck.

I don’t have a vacuum cleaner. Think about that one—I never have to vacuum. I never have to buy bags. First of all, it’s an incentive to take my shoes off when coming in the door, and secondly if the place gets that dirty I’ll just move. Vacuum cleaners suck.

I don’t have a TV. I never have to waste my time complaining about nothing being on TV. I don’t give a shit what’s on TV. If I could order one channel at a time, for fifty cents a month, I might consider it. My total monthly bill would be about $2.50. Otherwise I won’t have it in my house.

I don’t have a stereo, radio, ghetto blaster, CDs, anything like that. When I complain about noise, people always say, “Oh, you’ve got to get a TV or a radio or something in there, then it won’t bother you.”

I’m supposed to replace some other asshole’s noise with my own. That’s about the size of it.

I figure people hear so much noise around them they want to fight back. They want to control something. So they get a radio and try to drown out the annoying noises that all those other people make.

I want to control something too—I want to control how much quiet I got raging in my place.

I like to turn that fuckin’ quiet up all the way. You know?

I don’t have a cat, a dog, a bird, or a fish. I don’t have a snake. I don’t want one. They can go fuck themselves.

This is not me bowling.

I don’t have a criminal record, a tattoo, a drinking problem, a kid, a wife, a girlfriend, a mother-in-law. I don’t have a buddy because I can’t stand losers. I don’t have an ear-ring or a beard. I don’t have or want a pony-tail. I do not have a red hanky tied around my head. So why go there at all?

If you want a friend, buy a good car or a pair of respectable shoes or something. Sooner or later they will let you down, but hopefully you got your money’s worth out of them by then.

I don’t even have a really good suit.

There’s a lot of things I don’t have, a garden, a motorbike, a skidoo, a personal watercraft, a trailer out at the Pinery, a yacht, a jet, a set of night-vision glasses, an Aston-Martin DB-6 and a jet-pack, scuba gear, a Hasselblad, a miracle cure for AIDS, a bowling league night, the list goes on.

And I still don’t care.

(Louis, we're out of beer. - ed.)

Okay, now I care.

END

Photos: Top, Ken Schumin/Zach Vega, middle, Xiaphas, bottom, Che.