Prolgue to "Go Armored"

I haven’t lived what most would consider to be an extraordinary life. All twenty six years of it have been fairly uneventful. Good years, of course, but in the long run, nothing most people would write a book about.1

My parents were the exact model I would wish all children to have. They were always there, always listening, and always watching. There wasn’t any alcoholism or drugs in my years, just a steady realization that I was not alone and never really would be. Thinking back, there is not one event in my life where my parents were not present, good or bad. So the book can’t be written about my horrible childhood, because I didn’t have one. 2

I made my way through school, one of the bullied instead of one of the bullies. No one can say they learned any life lessons or appreciate those bullies that tormented their daily childhood lives, or adult lives for that matter. But the world wouldn’t be the world without them.3

My college years were, by and far, uneventful. For me, they were a time of learning, not only in education but in life. It was the first time I was on my own, living the way I wanted to, and it was the first time I owned a pet that was my responsibility alone, no one there to remind me to give her food and water. She was a three pound white rabbit with the attitude of a rabid pit bull that had just been pinched. But she was my friend, too. She never complained when I came home and cried in her fur, as long as she got a blueberry drop out of the ordeal.4

It wasn’t until after college that my life became interesting. I left New Jersey, where I had grown up and had planned my life until that moment. Growing up, you never really think about the possibility that you may leave where you loved. I hated that little New Jersey town where I grew up, and I can honestly say I do not miss the town itself. But my world was a small one and leaving it was not something you really thought would happen, even if you spent your childhood dreaming of escape.5

But I ended up in North Carolina, of all places. It was a state like I had never dreamed of, and to say I suffered culture shock is the understatement of the decade. Now I didn’t talk like everyone else, so every time I opened my mouth someone would ask me to repeat some line from the Sopranos for them. But never having dreamed up a life outside of New Jersey, it all became a free for all.6

Someone asked me in high school, when I was about sixteen, where I thought I would be in ten years. I figured someplace in New Jersey in an overpriced apartment with one bedroom, where I would spend my days at a computer writing newspaper articles freelance and working on a novel in my free time. It sounded logical then. Realistic, even.7

But here I am ten years later with no freelance articles under my belt. I am still working on a book in what little free time I now posses. The dreams I had in high school, and even in college, make me smile, but make me laugh real hard, too. Here I sit with an interesting past few years, a car loan with three years left on it, no medical insurance, and a different personality all together. I never imagined my life experiences would make me what I am today, but they have.8

I went from listening to punk rock in college to sitting back with a good book and some Celtic music to lower my blood pressure. Where my hair was once blue and curling down to the middle of my back, it is now brown and shoulder length, sensible for the rat race I face day in and day out. The jeans with the ripped out knees have been replaced with dress slacks, although I still sport my steel toed boots.9

And the dreams of yesterday have moved on to someone else, and I hope those dreams give that someone a lot of hope, like they did for me. But the days of dreaming about being a famous journalist have come and gone, replaced with a dream to drive an 18-wheeler. 10

Now, I can’t say with a straight face that my life after college wasn’t exciting. It started in college, to be honest. At the age of nineteen, I owned a business. Or, to be fair to her, I co-owned the business. It was a little bookstore we ran with free help, our two employees saving our backsides for a grade, one in high school the other in college for interior design. The run was a good one. Two young kids with no experience in business, neither one of us really having any work experience even, and we kept the doors open for a solid eight months. That’s something to be proud of. We learned a lot, the both of us. Some of those lessons included the realization that insurance is a wonderful thing. Neighbors are not always friendly. And owning a business can bring out the worst in people and end friendships. But life goes on.11

Then I moved to North Carolina, where the lessons charged at me to no end. Not all people around the country are like the people in New Jersey, don’t you know. This is the land of guns being a good thing, trains running through your backyard, and your neighbor just might own a few cows. Things changed for me here. 12

I realized, to some dissatisfaction, that I am not an office person. Spending eight to ten hours a day in an office was akin to being shot out of a cannon for me. So when my temp job ended, I did all I could to not get back into an office. 13

The stories you are about to read are about what came of this realization. My office became a very large truck. I drove it for a while, but eventually I ended up in the back doing the leg work. I wore a uniform and carried a gun. I went into areas of banks and ATMs that the usual person does not travel to.14

This is where I make my confessions. I loved that job. I worked with two different companies over the course of two years, both doing the same line of work while being incredibly different. But I hated it, too. I learned a lot over those three years, and not all of it was good. The person I had been going in was swept away with the wind and I was left over, bitter and cold. But I had some stories to tell. And the lessons I left with were priceless gems that you can never pick up from school or books.15

I learned what it takes to move forward and advance, and I became darn good at it, too. I left that line of work as a supervisor, and didn’t realize until several months later that I wasn’t as bad at the job as I’d thought. How many bosses run into people who worked under them on the street months after they left, only to be greeted with a hug and an “I miss you!” 16

I learned that people are generally not like my parents. All through my childhood and even to this day, my mom is the most beautiful girl in the world, and she is smarter than everyone else. My dad is the most handsome boy to ever grace the planet, and he is equally as smart as mom with the benefit of being able to beat up your dad. My parents are level headed and intelligent, common sense oozing out of every pore. Unfortunately, the rest of the world does not follow suit. Over three years, I had been hit by cars driven by people who thought this would gain them access to a broken ATM. I had people try to steal my gun to rob a convenience store. I watched as people tried to beat up an armored truck as my partner tried furiously to chase them off from inside. 17

Those people are in here. On every page. They made my life difficult. They made my days more entertaining. They taught me lessons I otherwise never would have learned. And they showed me what the human race was made of.18

That job taught me to look around. So in these pages is the occasional person I did not meet while working. Just occasionally, I caught the stupid and entertaining while at rest, and they are in here, too. 19

To clarify, I do not hate people. I find them entertaining. I learned that there are two different kinds of stupid. One is entertaining stupid, which are people who were temporarily struck dumb and those who always are but threaten no one. Then there are the people who are dangerous stupid.20

There is a difference between stupid and dangerous stupid. All stupid people are dangerous, we know this. But there is a major difference between the guy too stupid to be able to find the twenty foot wide exit of a store and someone who points a loaded gun at you and swears it is unloaded while saying, "See!" as you jump forward to smack the barrel towards the ceiling or to pull the gun away as their finger is going for the trigger. And yes, I have seen people shoot the ceiling.21

So in these pages are stories of humor. Stories I hope can share some kind of lesson with those reading them, but those lessons must be determined by you. Stories I hope will entertain, at the very least. This is my life, at least three important years of it, from start to finish. Live and learn, and don’t fear the changes it brings on in the process. That, my friend, is the meaning of life.22