Once upon a time, an aspiring young actress (hey, young is a relative term) received many, many bills in the mail, all at once. It went down something like this...
Dear Girl About Town, you owe $81.56 MORE to the incompetent doctor who already charged you $100 to look at your tendinitis-ridden knee and say, "I have no magic for you."
Dear Patient, you owe $122.72 to Cedar Sinai for "fee not covered by insurance and over and above fee for incompetent doctor who had no magic."
Dear Girl, you owe $69.51 to Time Warner Cable for your snail-slow Internet and your six TV channels. Yes, six.
Dear GAT, you owe $214 to the DMV for your car registration renewal and for our efficient, friendly and unparalleled service during your recent eight-hour visit.
Dear Actor, please pay your Comedy Class tuition or or live your life as a talentless bore.
The girl, unable to keep up with her expenses, had no choice but to take to the street. Being a big proponent of the positive attitude, she decided to think of it as a grand adventure. "I will be the best gamine ever," she thought, "I've always liked the outdoors and sewer rats are perfectly good companions!"
For every hardship, the ever-hopeful actress found a benefit: being car-less (no more LA traffic!), homeless (shelter is like, so 5 minutes ago!), TV-less (it's all reruns anyway, so whatevs!), Internet-less (no more breaking news alerts on Lindsay Lohan's court case!), credit-less (no more pre-approved credit card junk mail!), and without comedic timing (pity, as a sense of humor might come in handy on the street, but alas, I shall be marvelous at crying on cue!).
The happy-go-lucky girl adapted well to her new environment and spent her days on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, joyfully polishing the likes of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe (I guess you can take the girl out of the clean home but you can't take the home-cleaning out of the girl...) At night, she conducted corner-classes on the importance of personal hygiene, even taking her students on nightly field trips to The Grove to bathe in the fountain.
The girl had the cleanest, most organized box on the block. She made shabby so chic, her fellow vagrants named her "Guttersnipe of the Month." And, she discovered some wonderful street perks: being outside all the time, she never lacked for vitamin D (Dr. Oz would be so proud), she was able to host a scrumptious dinner party using only a discarded French fry and a partially-used packet of ketchup (take THAT MacGyver!), and she became very adept at breaking and entering.
But, the BEST part of her adventure....
Al Gore made a personal visit to her box, awarding her the Medal of Honor for her extraordinary efforts to end Global Warming by using less electricity...and for having a 100% recyclable home ("I would have preferred a sandwich," she mused, "but I suppose it's best for an actress to stay thin!")!!
THE END.
UPDATE: Legend has it, the girl, while dumpster-diving one day, happened upon a ratty old copy of The Secret and used it to land a role in the latest Tarantino film. Thus, as every good story goes...she lived very happily ever after.
