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How I Learned to Be Stingy Names have been changed. When your pockets are big, the amount of friends you have gets larger. But when your money gets low, your friend circle begins to shrink. I had to realize that only the ones who never leave your side are your true friends. A couple of months ago I learned a lesson about my friends Mimi and Dem. Mimi was my girl; I knew her for a little while. And Dem was all her peoples that be over at her house all the time. It was Friday—PAYDAY. Ever since I got my job at Century 21, a department store, like clockwork Mimi was calling my phone Friday asking me when I’m gonna come on the block. You know the saying, “If I eat then my friends eat”? Mimi and Dem thought it went, “If I eat, my friends eat. And then they mama and they grandmama can eat too!” For-Pay Party Mimi’s house was the chill spot. I was in an independent living program, and I’d already learned my lesson about having friends come over and messing up your house, eating up all your food, and using all the toilet tissue. I wasn’t having nobody up in my house. So that’s why we chilled at Mimi’s. Mimi lived in a four-bedroom townhouse with her mama, her mama’s boyfriend, her grandmama, her two little sisters and little brother, and one of her sister’s babies. Mimi’s older brother is locked up all the time, but his baby mama lives there, too. Mimi’s house was crowded, but we always had fun sitting in the big living room or outside on the porch. Mimi and Dem were hoodrats, I knew that for a fact. But I still hung out with them, because when I moved to the area they were the first people I met and Mimi was popular around. So one Friday night Dem wanted to have a party at Mimi’s house. They were telling me it was gonna be the bomb. Everybody been askin’ when Mimi gonna have another party at her house. I knew for a fact that people would definitely be there. They asked me did I wanna help put in on the party for food and liquor. They would be charging $10 to get in, so I would get my money back and then a little interest. I was like, “Cool, I definitely can use the money.” Me and Mimi went to the liquor store. We were both only 19 but we looked old enough to cop, so we didn’t have to worry about paying no crackhead to cop for us. Mimi was saying how they’d told mad people about the party on MySpace and Facebook. Everybody, I mean everybody, was coming tonight. Major Investment We went in the liquor store and Mimi just started picking up bottles. She didn’t have two pennies in her pocket to rub together. You would’ve thought she was balling, the way she was just dropping bottles in the cart, not even looking at prices. But I knew Mimi was broke as a joke. “Yo, you buggin, this mad money,” I said. She was like, “Damn, don’t even trip; you gonna get ya money back ASAP.” We put all the bottles on the counter, and the total came up to $150. I shook my head and went into my wallet. Mimi said, “Girl, I don’t even know why you was trippin; you got mad money.” Then she asked me to buy her a pack of cigarettes; she was gonna pay me back after the party. I was spending money on this girl like we went together. I didn’t mind because I was calculating in my head if 30 people came, that was $300; 50 people, $500. So that would be more than enough to get my money and a decent amount of interest. . . |
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