Featured Experience

The Time I Was Caught Sleeping In My Car and Some Thoughts on Cultural Pressure

The Time I Was Caught Sleeping In My Car and Some Thoughts on Cultural Pressure

It's nighttime in an upper-middle class suburb near downtown Denver, Colorado. Streetlights cast a warm light across the neighborhood revealing the faint orange of fall leaves on the trees and road. Quaint old brick homes built right up against each other line the streets with cars of the affluent parked bumper to bumper outside them.

Amidst these luxury vehicles, I'm sitting in the passenger seat of my cheap, old Durango, gathering up the ingredients to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with my headlamp. It turns out I left my backpacking spork in the back, which is essential for spreading the peanut butter and jelly, so I open the passenger side door to retrieve it. Opening the door turns on the interior lights of the car, illuminating my bed and many possessions piled up in the back.

With impeccable timing, an older, upper-middle class couple walks by just as I light up my car's interior, exposing my neighborly camping intentions just as I pop out of the car to face them.