The car’s door flung up into the sky, vertically, as opposed to swinging out sideways like a normal car. Sensing my approach, the owner tried to hide his trepidation with a smile, and opened his door. In the back of my mind, I heard my brother taunts, “Danger Will Robinson Danger!” What’s the worst that could happen? Emboldened and overcome with adrenaline I found my legs moving toward the car as if my brain wasn’t agreeable. Suddenly, a daring thought invaded my head: “Hey MJ, why don’t you ask the guy what he does for a living?” Could I? Naw… Or could I? I stood on the sidewalk, dumbfounded while I negotiated with myself. Hmmm … or maybe some rich kid who inherited the family fortune. My neurons fired, “What the heck?” How could a young guy afford such a prolific automobile? For god sakes, that car costs more than the house I live in! It’s got to be a lottery winner I speculated. I expected an old guy: Wrinkled, receding gray hairline and dressed two seasons late. Dressed in blue jeans and an over-sized flannel shirt with what I spied to be an Iron Maiden concert shirt underneath, I reasoned this couldn’t be the owner.
He couldn’t have been more than 25-years-old. I gawked for a few minutes until a young man left the ice cream parlor and headed toward the car.
It was also my sledgehammer that knocked my lazy ass out of park and cracked open the Fastlane shortcut. Huge and imposing, it sat there idly like a sleeping dragon. It was parked stoically like a king I gazed upon it like a worshiper beholden to its God. Awestruck, any thought about ice cream was banished from my brain. I was face to face with my dream car: a Lamborghini Countach famous from hit 80’s movie, Cannonball Run. I plotted the flavor of my next indulgence and headed toward the ice cream parlor. That day was like any other day: I sought ice cream.
When I did move, the local ice cream shop was often my target a sugary delight was a motive I could always count on. My exertions at the time were epitomized by a long broken broomstick I used it as the TV’s remote control since the real one was broken and I was to lazy to move. I wasn’t interested in teenage girls or playing sports but donuts, video games, and bowling.
I grew up in Chicago and was a porky kid with few friends. The 90 Seconds That Changed My Life – And Could Change Yours Too. “Get Rich Slow” made it abundantly clear: Go to school, get a job, save 10 percent, be miserly, and, someday, I can retire rich, albeit, old, and give up on those grandiose ideas of freedom, mountainside homes, and exotic cars. So, early in life, I gave up on the idea.
Common roads to wealth for the young are competitive and require talent become an actor, a musician, an entertainer, or a pro athlete- all familiar roads that had a big “ROAD CLOSED” sign that laughed “Not a chance MJ!” Wealth and youth was an equation that didn’t compute to me simply because I didn’t have the physical capabilities. As a teenager, I never gave myself a chance of becoming wealthy young.