One Caveat:
 “Spend a day with Joe” is not one of the prizes of my contest, I wouldn’t be that mean! Rather it is a compilation of several days. It is a fictional version based on my experiences.
 Other than that all else is as I experienced it.

 I wake up in the back of my car, an ‘89 Plymouth Colt hatchback. With the rear seat folded down and an older sleeping bag laid down along with a couple of old pillows it is a little cramped but I am able to sleep with some small measure of comfort. I wiggle out of my new sleeping bag - a present from Becky (the owner of Artisan’s corner) and from my blanket. All in all it isn’t unbearably cold despite it being winter. First off this is Southern California so very few nights tend to be bone chillingly cold and in this small space with the windows closed and my coverings the body heat tends to stay. Besides it isn’t like I’m sleeping in the nude! In colder weather I wear thick wool socks and a knit cap I picked up cheaply at a thrift shop selling second and third-hand items.
 I reach into one of the boxes occupying the right half of this small space. This is where I store my stuff and I remove a clean - well, a cleaner pair of socks which I change into. I have a bottle of spray meant to remove odors from fabric, which normally I would now give a short spray of on my “sleep socks”. But this Monday is for taking care of business such as straightening up so I won’t be going out on job searches. I pack the socks into my small laundry bag. When I have the money I go to a Laundromat about a mile away but today I have other plans and little money.
 I pack a change of clothing into my knapsack along with my laptop and get out. Ever try to get out from the back of a car on your own when there aren’t four doors and you have to unlock and open the front door from the back?  While some homeless and campers may be familiar with this contortionist exercise most people should be glad not to have to do this on a daily basis and on top of just waking up!
 Well I got on my bike and pedaled over to a small mall I do some work in occasionally. I do the clean up in the lot and property Sunday mornings and occasionally fill in for the regular maintenance guy from time to time. I opened the office and went straight to the bathroom (finally!). One of the big problems I had in being homeless is finding a bathroom that was open to me. Also I did a complete change of clothing in the bathroom.
 The clock said it was around 5 and my co-worker would be here in about an hour and a bit depending on how the RTA buses were running. I made a large pot of coffee and set up my laptop. Thankfully my ISP also provides toll free calls so I haven’t had to pay for use of the phone line at the office. This helps save what little money I have. So I checked my email and browsed through a couple of sites sipping a mug of black coffee.
 Finally Jim came in and I logged off so he could call in. We don’t have a punch clock; we call in to a pager/voicemail number.  We each took a cup of coffee and went out to check the lot and back out. Dragging along brooms, wheeled trash can and all the stuff needed to do this job. I was in the habit of dropping in once or twice a week to check on what is happening there and to see if I am needed to do an extra day or more.
 A little later the sun up fully and the day warming I biked back to the car. I then opened the doors and the back hatch and did what rearranging and straightened things up as well as I could. I cleaned out any crumbs and searched for anything that could be trashed and brushed the dust off the car. Finally I swept around the car. It may seem foolish to try and make such as presentable as possible or at least as unobjectionable as possible but I felt that this made me slightly more acceptable and attract as few problems as I could. While I doubt it made me any more acceptable - or my situation - at least I could try not to offend people and try and take what pride and care in myself as I could considering everything!
 My car cleaned and made neat and aired out I emptied my knapsack. Yesterday’s wear joined the rest in the laundry bag. I put a notebook and a couple of pens into the knapsack for later. I had a couple of bags of empty soda cans and plastic bottles stashed under the dashboard and on the front seat. These I took over to the recycler for some cash.
 Then I went to the library, which would be opening soon. Monday mornings I would check out the want ads in the papers from Sunday and Monday. Also I would make use of the hot water in their bathroom to wash my hair and for shaving. Mostly I would sponge bathe in the parks or at the bathroom in the office at the mall in my attempts to stay as clean as possible and have an acceptable appearance. But all these locations are cold water only and hot water always makes one feel cleaner. Well me anyway!
 As I already stated this is a compilation based on many days – too many – while homeless so not every Monday ran in this manner. I found that it didn’t pay to try and plan too far ahead. For example, not having a running car limited how many job interviews I could get to in a day. Limited funds meant I couldn’t use the bus to get around, as I would have liked; if I’d been able to afford the cheaper monthly pass it would have been a large help but there you have it as they say!
 One darkly humorous note lies in that I had gone to a local church trying to find out if they had any aid programs or information that I would find useful. I was hoping for something in the line of further schooling even more than housing or food. The secretary in the parish office told me there were no programs of any sort and there weren’t food, housing or aid of any sort.
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