In Blackjack, does the dealer have to hit on soft 17 ...

It was July 2015, Toronto was in the midst of an exceptionally humid heat wave, and the A/C in none of my other cars was working. Something had to be done.
I've always been a fan of the Mercedes W124 E-Class, produced from 1984 to 1995. I like its clean styling that manages to seamlessly blend elegance and presence, with rationalism and restraint. Very clean, timeless. It looks expensive without being ostentatious - what a novel idea in 2021. I test drove a clean '87 300E years prior, and was impressed with it, and had since kicked myself for not pulling the trigger on it. I resolved to right this wrong and get a W124 in my life.
I went to go see a 1993 500E. It had some 350,000 miles on it, it ran roughly from a bad wiring harness, the pressure accumulators for the self levelling shocks had failed, the interior was covered in tacky AMG badges, and one of those bespoke widened front fenders had been roughed up pretty badly. The air conditioning sort of worked, so that was good, I guess. The owner was a nice guy who had another gorgeous example, who bought this one as a project that he ran out of time for. I got him down to $4500, and decided to go check this E420 on the other side of town before making a decision.
This 1994 E420 had 300,000 kilometers on it, came with a two-inch thick stack of service history including all new suspension, brakes, new wiring harness, and a rebuilt transmission. It was clean, largely rust free, well looked after, everything worked, and it drove great. It even came with a spare set of staggered 17 inch AMG wheels. As icing on the cake, the air conditioner was frigid. All this for the princely sum of just $2,000. No brainer, we're done here, I'll have that one please.
Even looking back at how values for 500E's have risen since then, I do not and have never regretted that decision. That car would have cost me a pretty penny that I didn't quite have at the time to bring up to speed. The collector market on BaT that's now grossly inflating the value of those cars would never have embraced that example even if it were immaculate, because anything with high mileage and more than a few owners suddenly isn't worth looking at. Nuts to them, I'm sure someone's enjoying that car. Instead of restoring a 500E, I went down the unique path of making an interesting car out of the forgotten middle child of the W124 lineup, and I loved every second of it.
For those of you who read my Jaguar XJR review, you'll know I'm a bartender based out of Toronto. I'm not afraid to use just about anything as a daily driver, so long as it's interesting. I like cars that are well built, well engineered, and rewarding to drive. New cars do nothing for me and I'm not afraid to do some troubleshooting and get my hands dirty, so I've inadvertently embraced the "ballin' on a budget" ethos with my cars. I've had the pleasure of owning and driving some pretty special cars, and this E420 was one of the best cars I've ever had and without a doubt the most reliable of the bunch.
It's also worth making clear I bought this car five years ago and sold it three years ago, and the quality of images will reflect that. Some are mine, but interior and engine shots are pulled from elsewhere to reflect my car.
So what is it?
The car in question sat kind of the the middle of the E-Class lineup in North America at the time, above the far more popular six cylinder cars, but below the top tier 500E, or E500. It's important to note that Mercedes's naming convention changed in 1994, late in the W124's run. The lineup went from being called 260E, 300D, 300E, 400E and 500E, to E300D, E320, E420, and E500. The new naming convention also brought about a facelift for the W124 lineup, with a number of a subtle revisions to help keep the aging model looking fresh on showroom floors.
I'm not exaggerating when I say the 400E is 90% of a 500E. A lot of people taut the Porsche connection of the 500E, but don't know exactly what it entailed beyond "it's the Mercedes Porsche built, bro." Mercedes was consumed with the development of the upcoming W140 S-Class, and tapped Porsche to redesign the front subframe and firewall of the straight six powered W124 to accommodate Mercedes's then new and massive M119 V8. Mercedes then famously also contracted Porsche to assemble the cars, as the 500E's widened fenders wouldn't fit down Mercedes' existing production line. When the 400E was developed shortly thereafter, it used that same Porsche designed subframe. The 4.2L and 5L variants of the M119 V8 are externally identical, using the same accessories, driving through the same 722.3 4 speed automatic transmission, sent to the back through same rear end design. Mechanically, the 500E benefitted from an oil cooler, a shorter differential ratio, a rear self levelling suspension system, and hub assemblies from the R129 SL, allowing for the larger brakes, wheels, and tires, which mandated those flared arches. Those and of course the 5L engine's slightly increased bore and stroke are the only mechanical differences. Visually the 500E got a very subtly different front fascia with integrated fog lights, the aforementioned fenders, and a Sport interior with a different steering wheel and Recaro seats front and rear.
The bigger difference was in how the cars were tuned for different markets. On our side of the pond, the 400E was positioned to answer the threat from the Lexus LS400. Lexus was a offering a full size luxury sedan with a fancy new quad cam V8 for almost exactly the same price as Mercedes was selling the mid size 300E, and it only with came with a single cam six cylinder. The cars were priced within a few hundred dollars of each other and Mercedes was getting cleaned out, and so the 400E was an answer. Here you go, here's a Mercedes with a shiny new quad cam V8. It costs ten thousand dollars more than the Lexus, but hey, it's cheaper than the gigantic S class, and this way you still get to thumb your nose at the Joneses because you're still in a Mercedes. The car reflected this, as it sat fairly high, on soft, plush suspension, and skinny 195 size tires with tall, 65 series sidewalls. The exhaust was tuned for silence, and the differential was equipped with an intergalactically long 2.24:1 gear set for leisurely cruising and good highway fuel economy. 400E's almost all came fully loaded, with leather, walnut trim, powered everything, automatic everything else, heated seats, sunroof, and Mercedes's new state-of-the-art traction control system dubbed ASR.
In the rest of the world, the car reflected a very different paradigm. Maybe the Yankees wanted plush, torquey boats, but if you were in Europe and you were going to through the expense and taxation and hassle of buying a car with a V8, it's because you wanted something fast, and sporty. The cars sat lower, on firmer shocks, on wider 215 size tires wrapped around bigger 16" wheels, with a much more aggressive 2.65:1 differential ratio, making the gap between the 400E and 500E much narrower. A Sport package was available too, further lowering and stiffening the suspension, even going as far as to employ harder rear subframe bushings and a faster steering box, and the 500E's Recaro seats were included too, closing the gap even further still. Unlike the doughy USDM cars and decked out 500E's, you could, if you felt so inclined, spec your E class with a 4.2L V8, no sunroof, and manual cloth seats. None of the 400E's had the big SL's front hubs to carry around, and they made do with simpler, lighter, conventional gas shocks, rather than the 500E's hydraulic levelling system.
The 400E is down 800cc's of displacement, but also down on some weight, and complexity. The same bones are all there. They're really not so different.
It was this European idea of the 400E that inspired me to build mine.
How does it drive?
In general, I was impressed with it. The chassis was better than I anticipated, providing reasonable agility and surprising grip, despite its skinny tires and rolling, long travel suspension. The steering featured the typical early 90's artificial heft found on other European executive sedans, and provided healthy feedback; it may not have been urgent but it was well controlled, predictable, just communicative enough to keep you posted. The 275hp V8 was similar, providing imperceptibly smooth, seamless operation through the Mercedes 4 speed. Its long-legged gearing meant that it was not particularly eager, but it got the job done just fine. Brakes were terrific, all W124's have some of the best brake feel of any cars and this was no different. It's that just-right secret sauce of firmness, feel, travel, and response, backed up by hardware that'll haul the 3,700lb car down over and over in a remarkable hurry without breaking a sweat.
Overall, it was a very nice cruiser. Skinny tires make for little road noise, the ride was about as cushy as you can get before starting to wallow, the powertrain provided effortless motivation, and the tall gears allowed it to return an honest-to-God 28mpg on the highway. Mercedes USA benchmarked it against Lexus and I think it's pretty safe to say to they hit their mark.
But I didn't want a Lexus benchmarked Benz, I wanted to go hunting for BMW's like they did in Europe.
What did I do?
Pretty much the same thing Mercedes did back home, albeit perhaps to a greater extent. I ditched the stock 15 inch wheels for the 17 inch set of AMG wheels that came in the trunk of the car when I bought it, and shod them with Michelin Pilots, 225 up front and 245 out back. The loooonnng springs were ditched for a set of H&R Sports, and the fading Sachs shocks were replaced with Bilstein B8s. The grandpa-spec differential was swapped for a unit from a 500SL, giving me the same 2.65:1 gearing the EUDM cars enjoyed. For a little more power, I replaced the stock engine computer with one from an earlier '92 400E. The '92 cars had an enrichment parameter on wide open throttle, which was eliminated from later cars for what I think were emissions/fuel economy reasons. This earlier DME combined with the slight increase in compression ratio on my later facelifted car made for a nice bump in power - dyno verified 15hp according to a W124 guru who goes by the name gsxr on BenzWorld, if I recall correctly. Exhaust was left largely unchanged - the previous owner replaced the rear muffler with a Flowmaster when the original one began to rot away, and I liked it just enough to leave it be.
And?
The result was a hell of a car. Right out of the gate, the car felt tighter, more controlled, more eager. Steering and chassis response were noticeably more precise, and crisp. Yeah, crisp is the word. It was still a Mercedes and still felt like a Mercedes, with firm, deliberate controls and an unimpeachable chassis that lent the sense you're at the helm of a particularly nimble train. Engine response was greatly improved without being held back by gearing anymore. It was able to more readily delve further into the rev range, finally able to wake up and make good use of those four valve heads, whisking the car away with immediacy, and distinctly Germanic tenor vocals. The 4 speed auto happily stepped up to the plate, delivering neat and tidy upshifts and downshifts, and took no offense to manual intervention. People knock the 500E for being saddled with this slushbox but honestly, it's very good and impeccably well suited to the car, and its engine, and its character. It's never in the way and will do exactly as you ask when you ask, and that's all you can expect from automatic. Fun bit of trivia: Mercedes tuned the engine computer to retard ignition timing for 400ms when upshifting at wide open throttle for a super fast shift, and boy it could rifle them off in a hurry. I liked it better than the 5 speed in my E55, the old 722.3 4 speed felt more decisive.
That's kind of the car's whole paradigm. Tight, disciplined, controlled. It's not exactly what you'd call playful, but its so solid and finely honed that it ends up being a very satisfying thing to pilot - very much like a 500E, come to think of it. I've driven two of them, I know what I'm talking about.
What was it like to live with?
Well for one, it looked great. It was kind of an accident that it all came together so well. The interplay of the classic Mercedes style with the Black Pearl Metallic paint, and the lowering a couple inches gave a little bit of camber to the AMG wheels which gave it damn near perfect fitment and a really nice stance. At first it came out a little too low, thicker spring pads were employed to help raise the car just a little bit, to help shift the style to 'sports sedan' rather than 'drug dealer.' The car got way more positive attention and thumbs up and comments than I would have ever guessed, I think the best one was when a guy in a brand new Audi S8 yelled over "yo that thing is sick!" This cheap ass old math teacher's car could really command attention without ever being shouty. Everyone who noticed it, liked it.
While its modifications meant it was no longer a boat, it was still very comfortable and compliant, soaking up Toronto's rougher roads without any fuss. I mean, there's probably not a lot I can say you haven't already heard; it's an old Mercedes. The seats were excellent, supportive and comfortable. It was quiet. There were no squeaks, no rattles. The controls were well placed and well thought out. The only signs of wear anywhere were on the driver's seat on radio volume knob, and that's fair on a twenty year old car. The driving position was spot on and visibility was terrific. The interior design, much like the exterior, is restrained with clean lines and uniform use of quality materials, with small flourishes of glossy walnut to break up the sterile theme with a bit of warmth. The gauge cluster is about as perfect as you could ask for, with a full complement of clear, concise gauges and they're all real too, no dummy stuff. This was a car you could drive for hours and get out of feeling relaxed, not even really needing to stretch. Trunk space was excellent. The sound system was excellent. Rear seat space was excellent. The heating and air conditioning was excellent. I know this is kind of boring to say but it really did everything very well, and it didn't even drink that much, generally getting 450kms between fill ups of its 72L tank. I'm not sure I've ever had a better daily, and in fact the only car I've had that might match it in terms of persistent, relentless excellence was my E55.
It was my first car that just worked. It always worked, it always did everything right, I could always count on it to be a brilliant machine, immediately becoming the stalwart of my fleet at the time. It drove great and was fast enough to make any road interesting. When my Saab was waiting for parts, the Benz was there. When my BMW was offline yet again, the Benz was there. Come to think of it, I took that car to several BMW meets while my own Bavarian car was indisposed, and they always liked it. There might have even been a faint whiff of envy once of twice.
If I had to nitpick, the climate controls are incomprehensible. Thankfully, there's only five buttons, and the system works so well you can just set it to auto and not touch it for months.
What about reliability?
I owned it for two and change years and it was my primary car for most of that time. Outside of the electives, it needed... um... brakes. Yeah. These cars are hard on their brakes. I had to do the pads all around, and the rear rotors towards the end of my ownership. The rear rotors were surprisingly hard to track down, I think it took a week for them to show up. The front sway bar links had worn out and started to make noise, there's that. Oh, the radio volume knob was kinda iffy, apparently its common on those old Becker decks. The day after I bought it, it developed what sounded like really nasty lifter tick, but that cured itself after a few nerve wracking minutes and never came back. And uh... Oh! Shortly after I bought it, I moved the throttle cable in the engine bay and this triggered an ASR light and put the car into limp mode. Disconnected the battery and it went away and never came back. There... there must've been more...
Did it do anything wrong?
Honestly, not really. It had a couple persistent electrical issues. Mercedes cars from 93-95 used a biodegradable engine wiring harness that biodegraded a little too quickly; its not a matter of if, but when it'll fail. The upper harness controls almost all of the sensors and can generate really bizarre running issues when it starts to fail, and being on top of that gigantic engine, they tend to start acting up first. Thankfully my upper harness had been replaced with an updated Delphi unit years before I bought it, but my lower harness was still original. This harness has less to do, driving only the starter, and the oil pressure sender, if I recall correctly. While the car never failed to start, my oil pressure gauge never worked properly. I also had a strange issue where if I ever used the horn, it would blow a fuse and take the turn signals on the same circuit out with it. Once in a great while it would throw a check engine light for secondary air injection, and this could be cleared from a terminal in the engine bay with no tools.
The only recurring issue stemmed from the distributors. Despite it being the most sophisticated engine on Earth at the time, it still made use of distributor caps, and these engines can be fussy about them sometimes. As I recall, they weren't always great at sealing and ventilating moisture, so occasionally the car would run roughly for a few minutes on startup before clearing itself up. This occurred five, maybe six times over the course of my ownership. Once a year I would open the distributors, clean the contacts, and condition the gasket with a little grease. Took 20 minutes, maybe. In retrospect, I'm not sure if that helped anything, but it definitely didn't hurt. If I still had it I'd just shell out to redo the ignition and call it a day.
That reminds me, parts for these cars can be expensive. Genuine Mercedes parts are some of the most expensive around, but thankfully you can buy almost anything from the OEM supplier directly. For example, a Genuine Mercedes lower control arm might be $250, but you can get a Lemforder lower control arm for $120 - and Lemforder makes that part for Mercedes anyway. Other things like the aforementioned ignition, with two distributor caps, two rotors, two gaskets, a set of wires, and 8 spark plugs can get expensive quickly - but on the other hand they're rated to last 160,000kms, and that's what you're paying for. Roll up to a Mercedes dealer and say 'fix it,' you're screwed. Do some homework and/or find a decent indy mechanic, and they're very reasonable to keep on the road. In fact, I sold mine to my mechanic because he loved it, and he's still got it. His wife and son drive it now.
If its so good, why'd you sell it?
I didn't intend to. I had every intention of making it a long term staple in my fleet because it was such a good car that asked for so little in return - hell, I think I only had four grand in it, total. The only car that could possibly dethrone my E420 was a BMW E34 540i/6, and there was no way I was gonna find one of those for anything close to the Benz's price point.
Until I did. In retrospect, this was a bad move.
In summary?
Any W124 is a great car that deserves to be driven, and loved. It's kind of a common thing to hear they are some of the best cars ever made and that's not an exaggeration. Stock for stock, I think I'd prefer an early 300E, they're a fair bit more nimble and possess an almost ethereal BMWness, without the BMW quibbles. A 500E is a killer machine but as I'm far as I'm concerned, that door is closed. They're collector pieces now, relegated to be garage queens, which is a shame. But a 400E? That's the sweet spot. If you can track down a EUDM/JDM model, or build your own like I did, you will be rewarded with a beautiful, comfortable, reliable, practical, satisfying car, that honest to god is about 90% of what the legendary 500E is, minus the headaches from the hydraulic suspension. You can park it outside on the street and not worry about it, too. You can drive it every day and not worry about putting miles on it. Just drive it, enjoy it, and cherish some of the finest engineering ever committed to production.
Embedded images and more can be seen here: https://imgur.com/a/oPw4OSv
Just felt like writing today. Thanks for reading.

I struggle to concentrate so need the motivation to keep on writing and boost my ego. As the title says, before then i only knew HST through the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Read a few articles since and have fallen in love with his writing style. Seeing as I've also been to a fair few sporting events with varying degrees of success thought I could continue the theme. Please let me know what anyone thinks of this half-finished first draft of a story. There are so many other things I could be doing but writing feels the most comforting. Not looking to quit the day job any time soon but one can dream. Genuinely appreciate any feedback, good or bad.....
For the first time I could remember, there was nothing that had been left to the last minute. All things considered a rather momentous occasion. No agitation, no plans on dismembering the thickly bearded, traditionally dressed, pot-bellied, presumably, Muslim, Uber driver on the side of the motorway and continuing the journey myself in his Shackelton would have been proud of this Prius. Although thinking about it, the last time I was behind a wheel almost resulted in a power shortage in a remote village in North Zambia. Maybe for the better. Horses for courses I reasoned.
A little fidgety, yes, but I'd always been this way. Hopefully, nothing to draw the unwanted glares of the enforcers of the empire that swarmed places like Luton Airport. United had scrambled their way to the Europa Cup final. Not quite the Champions League Final but life felt good. Its all relative they said and they were probably right. Mr Ronald McDonald had fleeced me enough times into buying the supersize milkshake when compared to the price of the small one to agree wholeheartedly. My small angular faced drug dealer used the same tricks as well. What a bunch of exploitative wankers. Albeit smart ones.
For his splendid conversation skills I decided to give the top fella £5. 0.5% of me hoped he didn't spend it on funding terrorism, but 99.5% understood that way of thinking was the Daily Mails fault. Cant brainwash me so easily you bastards. Anyway, we were still in the wake of the Manchester terror attacks so I could be forgiven for the invasive thought.
This was the first mini leg in a marathon to the Friends Arena in Stockholm and currently cruising through at what seemed like a world record pace. Like any good relay sprinter, I needed some help. Finding a little secluded corner in the car park was easy. Sprinkling some super soft Amnesia hash via Morroco into a joint also went without any trouble. It’s always funny to watch smokers when they know it’s going to be their last fag in a while, shit gets emotional. Expertly I chose to pair my lightly spiced zoobie with a bitter Americana from a Cafe Nero truck that was parked adjoining the entrance.
Rolling into the airport, feeling like a fucking top boss, Luton’s very own Don Corleone. The holy trinity of Nicotine, THC, and Caffeine pumping through my veins. Fuck yeah. This is bliss. What should I do? Get a big fat Burger King. Or maybe pick up a book or two. Could even push the boat out and get convinced by a lady to buy an aftershave I didn’t need. My imagination was drifting, the options were fucking limitless. Eat your heart out Bradley Cooper. Casually strolling up to the departure screen to check my gate number, something suddenly clicked "Luton's own Don...". Oh Fuck. Shit. Shit. Cunt. It all abruptly banged me right in the fucking goolies. Only in the wrong fucking place. This is a god damn Easy Jet airport and I'm meant to be flying with Ryanair. Fucked, was an understatement, as probably was a massive bell-end, call the sterilization squad, idiot.
Stansted Airport was an hour away by road and my flight departure time was also just about an hour away. Although I wasn't so well endowed in some areas, Maths couldn't be counted as one of them. My DNA did show as Indian. However, this didn't need much calculation. The short story was the same as the long one. Fucked.
For Hanuman’s sake. Why do I always do this? Why? How? Rhetorical questions but if you want an answer my best guess would be Bill Gates had something to do with it. Nothing to do with the snowballing effect of consuming copious amounts of Mary Jane this morning- over the last 17 years. Pessimistically yet frantically searching for the next flights leaving from both airports seemed an exercise in futility. Which proved right.
Obviously, they all cost more than £700, all the(other) glory hunting London Mancs heading to the game in Sweden. Couldn’t really afford that unless wanting to survive on a nutritious university diet of cornflakes and water for my stay in Scandinavia. Not having many options left, doing as all respectable men have done throughout the history of the world, I resorted to bribing God and said my prayers whilst offering to stop gambling smoking drinking and whatever else he wanted me to give up. Pelting it back into the car park, there were people in the queue but this was an emergency. So I flung myself across the back-seat of the first taxi and screeched at the poor befuddled man my time ticking bomb of a predicament.
The weasely looking man raised an eyebrow, taking an eternity to consider, he thought we could make it. Of course, he fucking does, he’s happy to take my money for a lost cause. What a fucking twat. I was starting to feel the pressure if you couldn’t tell. Whatever at least we were on our way. The next hour consisted of what I was trying to avoid earlier: Mainly looking for easily accessible shallow graves en route. The village didn't really need power anyway. Occasionally I would get distracted from the task in hand and check Google maps which confirmed we were on the tightest of margins.
Is he driving slow on purpose? Why the fuck do I always do this shit? All I had to do was check my boarding pass or the confirmation or anything else? What the fuck is wrong with my brain?
Eventually, we got to Stansted 10 mins before the scheduled flight departure time. Shouting at the driver to say thanks felt insincere as only 20 minutes ago I had wished a terrible fate upon the poor unsuspecting man. Boris had started a chain reaction of insincere promises which 52% of the idiotic nation had swallowed up only to backtrack immediately the day after the referendum. Sprinting top speed into the airport, never really a wise idea for an unshaven brown man, not least the day after the Manchester terror attacks, but what choice did I have? Screeching around the corner and ahh motherfucker. My worst nightmare. The queue to take you through immigration was pretty long and fucking windy. Undeterred, channelling my inner Lewis Hamilton I slalomed past the first bunch of commuters. Less elegantly bundled past a couple more, mumbled a few apologies, under a few barriers, around a pair of others. The promised land was in sight. Only one more row to get through.
When from out of nowhere, well, not exactly out of nowhere because he was a rather large individual. This random fuckface blocks my path. The geezer needed panoramic mode to take selfie.
I step right, he leans right, I go left, he leans left, I try to sell him the dummy but he blocks again. He must have done Karate as well.
‘If I have to wait in the queue so do you’ says the hater.
I try to quickly reason ‘My flights about to depart, please let…’.
He cuts me off mid-sentence ‘I don’t care, I don’t care, mate’.
I quickly realise what kind of party it is. FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER. My blood boiling with rage. There was nothing I could do to get around him and the doubts were now starting to creep in. After waiting for the most excruciating minute of my existence behind this dream sucking moron, an opportunity from the gods miraculously presented itself. As if he was listening to my earlier mentioned prayers. I dart for freedom under a newly opened barrier, by the time he turns around to see me and roars his disgust, it’s too late, I’m already putting my bag through the scanner.
So long sucker, I hope you choke on some of this curry flavoured dust pal.
Checking my pockets whilst walking up to the security guard, I feel something squidgy in my back pocket. Fuck. I immediately know that’s my fucking 1/8th of hash, can’t believe I forget to stuff it down my trousers in all my haste. It’s too late to throw it on the floor or turn around as the security guard already had his beady eyes locked on me. Mortified by my stupidity, I jitter forward with a little poop in my pants. He seems suspicious, I blame the panic on being late, he looks me up and down and to my suprise nods to move on. The relief is fucking immense, but suddenly the realisation that Stansted is the stupidest airport in the galaxy hits like Tyson in his prime. Commercial shops combined with fucking slow-walking imbeciles everywhere. That’s how they control the masses, fuck your capitalism. I hate you all.
Glance up at a screen and it’s 4 minutes to departure time. Put my head down and rotate my legs as fast as they can go, but my saggy jeans start to ride around my thighs restricting movement to an awkward looking limp. I’d sacrificed putting my belt back on for more running time. Another poor life gamble lost. Unrelenting, one hand clutching my waistband, one hand in my pocket to stop everything falling out, I charge like Chucky on a chase. I try to dodge a young family in the incoming traffic but my bag smashes into some poor kid’s head. He'll live. I hear some dads background abuse and if I had time I would have loved to stop to have a coffee, but nothing was going to stop me, not even this bloody stitch.
Okay, fuck, I underestimated you. Bastard stitch. Actually, have to stop and peel over, only 3 fucking gates away from the promised land. After catching my breath I muster whatever energy I have left to claw myself to the gate just as they are shutting the barrier exactly on departure time.
Aside from the extorianate price of hops, wheat and yeast, the flight encountered no major trouble. Wooooohooooooo. Whose the granddaddy of leaving things to the last minute. I must be a bloody genius.
Walking up to the immigration counter on the other side, one thing was abundantly clear. The women in this land were fucking stunning. A westernised version of beauty but nonetheless extremely attractive. Id met my fair share of Scandinavian's in East Africa to know this stereotype to be true beforehand. As was the liberal tag they had been emblazoned with, this was primarily based on the multiple women I'd seen with the local beach boys or Masais in Zanzibar. They definitely weren't in it for the money.
"Have a great day' the dark-haired lady behind the desk wished me with a smile.
​
Thanks for reading!

Guide is written and updated for Season #1 Awakening

The druids summoning tree recieved a massive rework in PD2 with the goal to make it a viable self reliant build archetype on its own. Not only got the minions buffed themselves but now you are able to summon multiple of them at the same time, which wasn’t a thing back in D2 LOD. I won’t go over all changes in detail but I recommend taking a look at the official wikis druid section to see all changes that have been done in this mod before continuing reading.

An in-depth guide?

My goal with my guides is to really provide a lot of information to players, not just a list of items and no explanation how to get there or why you want them. Also I am not a fan of videos; imo you can’t tell if you like playing a build just by watching someone playing it in a perfect handmade setting for a couple of minutes… you can’t grasp the actuall feeling of the build this way But don’t worry I got something even better for you! In various sections of this guide you will find 4 different singleplayer savegames to DOWNLOAD with characters in different progression stages with real gear all functioning properly! So you can try and test the build in this guide to full extend yourself, on your pace, the way you like it and as long as you want to see if it fits your taste and if you actually want to play it on ladder.
Just to mention it: I am mostly a HC player, so I design all my builds geared towards a HC setting – feel free to adjust everything you don’t like to your liking if you play SC. Don’t treat my recommendations as the only options you have, think for yourself and try out different stuff which looks interesting to you.

General Playstyle:

Very meticulous and safe playstyle – perfectly suited for HC. Your minions will kill, tank and draw attention away from you while you are standing in the back spamming Ravens… Sounds boring to you? Well if you like you can also get your hands dirty: use you shapeshifting abilities and transform into a bear, fight by your minions side and maul down hords of daemons with them! If the situation is dangerous just sit back, kite and reposition your trusty merc and your minions with the new teleporting ability Gust. Carrion Vine devouers fallen corpses to heal you and your minions after an engagement. Cast Cyclone Armour in the right situations to protect yourself from elemental damage.

PROS

• Very safe playstyle
• Not many klicks required to play this build
• Can be build very tanky
• Very good bossing character
• Can do Ubers and MiniUbers solo and safely
• DClone is possible solo (but very hard, you have to play really well)
• Can do maps with dangerous mods/high density in HC solo
• Very good build for group compositions which want to tackle difficult content together
• Smooth ladder starter

CONS

• Summoner playstyle is not for everyone
• Achieving good clear speed requires some gear investment / not the best farming speed at the start of a ladder
• Minions are a little weak at the at the start of Hell difficulty, requires frequent resummoning and good positioning
• Druids don’t have good life scaling (comperatively low HP pool at the beginning of Hell to other classes, weak FHR and block frames), you will need good gear and some investment to feel tanky, otherwise you have to know what you are doing
• If you want to play this build well, you need to switch between many skills, kite, pay attention to your envirenment and constantly reposition. The skill cap of this build is quite high – profund D2 knowledge will be required to play this build to max efficiency, especially in groups, since your mistakes might cause deaths to your group members
• Requires to setup minions everytime you start a new game

Basic skill point distribution in the endgame:

Summoning Tree:

• 20 Raven
• 20 Summon Spirit Wolf
• 20 Summon Dire Wolf
• 20 Summon Grizzly
• 1 Poison Creeper
• 1 Carrion Vine
• 1 Heart of the Wolverine

Elemental Tree:

• 1 Arctic Blast
• 1 Cyclone Armor
• 1 Gust

The rest points are yours to choose and depend on preference. I personally like to dump as many points into Gust to reach a cooldown timer that feels good for a fast playstyle, repositioning frequently. Other options would be investing into Heart of the Woverine for damage or investing into Werebear, Lycanthropy and Maul if you want to transform frequently and fight by the side of your minions in first row. Just keep playing around with it an see what you like best.

Stats:

• Strength: enough to wear your gear (and to be able to perform a weapon swap in combat)
• Dexterity: depends if you are going for max block; otherwise no points here/enough to wear gear
• Vitality: Everything you can spare goes here
• Energy: Nothing

Breakpoints:

• %FCR: If you are focusing on Gust and are mostly spamming Ravens in the background you would want to reach at least 46% FCR breakpoint (13 frames) for your teleport to feel smooth, more is always good but not needed (reminder: you can’t use Gust while shapeshifted – but you can perform warcrys while shapeshifted in PD2! Those also depend on your %FCR breakpoint)
• %FHR: If you go maxblock I would aim for the 63% breakpoint (7 frames) – if you prefer going werebear form often and wielding a 2H-weapon go for 86% (6 frames)
• %FBR: Druid has very slow blocking frames so investing here is a must; go for the 6 frames breakpoint (52% in human form, 65% in bear form if you insist using a shield), don’t use shields with no extra %FBR on them to avoid getting block-locked.
• %IAS: Depending on your weapon choice if you wanna go full werebear (use an IAS calculator), otherwise, none.

Leveling – How to level this build from scratch:

Normal:

Pretty easy overall for summoner. Spam Ravens and resummon your minions when needed – Diablo is the most difficult encounter here since he is able to kill your minions fast. Just keep your distance and keep resummoning them until he is deas (this will take a while but it is a safe approach).

Level	Skill	Level	Skill	Level	Skill
Level 2	Raven	Level 13	Cyclone Armor	Level 24	Raven
Akara	Poison Crepper	Level 14	Summon Spirit Wolf	Level 25	Raven
Level 3	Arctic Blast	Level 15	Summon Spirit Wolf	Level 26	Raven
Level 4	Raven	Level 16	Summon Spirit Wolf	Level 27	Raven
Level 5	Raven	Level 17	Summon Spirit Wolf	Level 28	Raven
Level 6	Raven	Level 18	Gust	Level 29	Raven
Level 7	Raven	Radament	Summon Dire Wolf	Level 30	Summon Grizzly
Level 8	Raven	Level 19	Summon Dire Wolf	Level 31	Raven
Level 9	Raven	Level 20	Summon Dire Wolf	Level 32	Raven
Level 10	Raven	Level 21	Summon Spirit Wolf	Level 33	Raven
Level 11	Heart of The Wolverin	Level 22	Raven	Level 34	Raven
Level 12	Carrion Vine	Level 23	Raven	Level 35	Summon Grizzly

Gear to look out for at the end of Normal: Spirit sword, Stealth chest, Ancients Pledge shield, a random Wolf Head with +skills (just farm Normal Cows for required runes and some random charms and bases – it is not difficult to get, you also will occasionally drop low level set pieces, some of them are pretty decent at this point). Try to build an Insight Polearm for your Act 2 merc – it will carry you early Nightmare along with your minions.
Here is an example of how your character should look like at this stage in the game – download the savegame and copy it into your D2 savegamefolder and start it in Single Player: DOWNLOAD - Early Nightmare Test Character

Nightmare:

Got your basic gear ready and some decent resists to start out? Good – if not farm Nightmare Countess and Black Marsh/Stony Field for runeword bases and runes before you go on. You can also attempt to build a Lore now if you have a good base. Just carry on through the acts – Nightmare is easy with basic gear, you will face no problems at all (watch out for dolls in Act 3! Their explosions got reworked and now have a delay). If summoner is to slow for your liking at this point you can respec to wind druid at lvl 40 (it basically utilizes the some gear, so you can make an easy switch anytime you want using a respec – Hurricane will carry hard in Nightmare and is a great tool for farming Nightmare Cows at a decent speed with very little gear) – but summoner can also do everything at this point without problems. After maxin out ravens put around 5 points each into both of you wolves and then max out Grizzly, after that max out Spirit Wolves and Dire Wolves in this order. Once you kill Baal it is farming time! You have do do some farming for basic gear in PD2 before you go to Hell difficulty, otherwise you will struggle hard. So take your time to farm up some gear in Nightmare Cows. Nightmare Cows is THE best farming spot at this point in PD2 thanks to player 5 loot; Cow Kings drop table is really nice and you can kill him here; the portal can still be opened afterwards – you can drop a ton of good stuff there. Lets assume you get really unlucky and get no good drops at all; you sill will be able to progress as summoner, no worries.
Gear to look out for at the end of Nightmare: Just pick up every amulet and charm, reroll grand charms from Cow Level for Skillers, sell them and buy 3-4 clean summon skillers for your druid. Gamble amulets for a good chance at +3 class tree skill levels with the gold you get from cows and selling items to vendors – sell +3 amulets for other classes and buy a +3 summon druid amulet if you don’t find one yourself. Build yourself a Rhyme shield in an exceptional base, upgrade your Stealth to a Smoke chest in an exceptional base (if you can’t find a Lum rune, just buy one or use a 3os chest and socket it with Ral-Ort-Thul for some resist instead. Overcap your resists with charms to have good resistances when you enter Hell difficulty. I recommend using a respec hear to invest some points into dexterity reaching around 50% chance to block with a Rhyme shield. We likely won’t have access to %PDR or decent amounts of flat PDR at this point so block is an option to consider against physical attacks.
Here is an example of how your character should look like at this stage in the game at the bare minimum before you should enter Hell – download the savegame and copy it into your D2 savegamefolder and start it in Single Player mode: DOWNLOAD - Early Hell Test Character

Hell:

Hell is difficult for almost any character build without gear in PD2 similar to vanilla. As a summoner just be careful, keep resummoning your minions when they die and take your time – you will get there. Just do Act 1 normaly until you reach Outer Cloister waypoint. From now on just farm Pits. It is a lvl 85 zone with a high treasure class which can drop almos all items in the game. Farm up gear before you continue through the acts. You can do it as a summoner with basic gear but you have to really know what you are doing to not die – farming Pits for gear is way easier. For skill points just finish maxing out your wolves and put the rest points into Gust to lower the cooldown further.
Gear to look out for while farming Hell Pits: You want to get complete Aldur’s Set as soon as possible. Every piece but the body armour can drop even in Nightmare difficulty – Aldurs isn’t overly rare and one of the easiest class sets to farm. The Set also recieved a huge buff in PD2 which makes it the abolut best midgame gear choice overall for this build – you need very good gear before you can even think about outclassing it. So just farm and buy all pieces one by one if you don’t find them yourself. Once you have aquired the full set just buy two Nagel rings for MF, look out for a white Monarch, socket it and build yourself a Spirit shield, buy IK belt if you havn’t found a decent rare belt yet and you are basically done. Before you carry on I highly recommend buying any kind of Ampliy Damage on hit weapon for your merc to deal with physical immunes.
Here is an example of how your character should look like at this stage in the game. You can cruise through Hell now and farm any regular Hell content with this setup and even do easy maps – download the savegame and copy it into your D2 savegamefolder and start it in Single Player mode: DOWNLOAD - Midgame Test Character
From here on out it is your choice where you want to take the build – get more clean skillers first and decide from there what you want to upgrade next.

Endgame Gearing:

This section only covers endgame gear options (check leveling section for gear progression). PD2 provides a very in-depth gearing system thanks to various balancing changes to uniques, runewords and adding a corruption and socketing system on top of that. Everything depends on gear composition – imo their is no (or very seldomly) clear BIS option for a gear slot for any build type. Just take a look, compare and try to reach breakpoints where you can. I will also mention usefull corruptions to look out for on each gear slot. I won’t list every option since there is just too much to cover – instead I will focus on pointing out interesting concepts and ideas for you to build around. If you have questions regarding gear choices just ask in this thread – people can have a discussion and help each other out with ideas.

What should be your focus?

Try to stack +skills until you reach around slvl 45 with precast gear and stop there (you don’t need that many, around lvl 35 is sufficient for all regular content). More is always possible but not needed. At this level your minions can tank Ubers confortabely and going for more damage won’t improve your clear speed by much – don’t be a mindless „tooltip warrior“ in PD2, higher numbers don’t always translate into higher clear speed in this game. After that focus on defence, getting extra auras from gear and building a great merc.
Want to see how a fully decked out HC Summon Druid performs in PD2? Download this savegame and copy it into your Diablo 2 savegame folder, start the game in Single Player mode and enjoy! DOWNLOAD - Endgame Test Character

Weapons:

• Heart of the Oak [Ko-Vex-Pul-Thul] in a Flail: good old Hoto, great %FCR, 3 skills and some resist. This runeword got nerfed in PD2 but it is still a very good option to consider for defensive setups which don’t have room for resists or %FCR in other slots.
  
• Beast [Ber-Tir-Um-Mal-Lum] in an Berserker Axe/Ettin Axe (1h) or a Champion Axe (2h): Depending if you want to use werebaerform often and fighting yourself with your minions – go for a 2H weapon since it has better %IAS frames and more damage. The classic approach would be just wearing it for the Fanaticism aura to buff you minions and stand back which also works. Keep in mind that this runeword got changed slightly in this mod – it no longer provides up to 40 Strength but has more %ED and a higher level of Fanaticism to compensate for it.
  
• Doom [Hel-Ohm-Um-Lo-Cham] in an Berserker Axe/Ettin Axe (1h) or a Champion Axe (2h): You don’t feel the need for more damage but wan’t more CC to support your group? Then Doom is the choice for you – Holy Forst provides some nice slowing effect and cold damage to you to deal with highly physical resistant monsters on your own, damage and %IAS is also great. Doom is a top choice for group support if you play with someone who can provide you and your minions with a Fanaticism aura already like a Bowzon or a Zeal Paladin.
  

Shields:

• Stormshield: Want %DR and max block on your build? Then this is the choice for you – not much to say here since it is still one of the best choices despite the huge %DR nerf it recieved.
  
• Gerke’s Sanctuary: Got buffed in PD2 and is a top tier choice now. Great resists, max block viable, a +skill and %DR paired with some flat pdr and mdr – one of the best defensive shields you can get
  
• Moser’s Blessed Circle: still one of the best shields available imo for a rather cheap price
  
• Rhyme [Shael-Eth]: super easy to get and very decent in an elite base for any max block build out there. You get resists and the very valuable affix CNBF which affects cast speed in PD2 so it is great to have in any build now. Corruptions to look out for: +1 skill, resists, CNBF, block chance/block rate, cast speed, %PDR, %FHR, Replenish Life
  

Weapon Swap:

• Call to Arms [Amn-Ral-Mal-Ist-Ohm]: While BO got a massive deserved nerf in PD2 CtA ist still great and better than ever for this build in particular. Mostly overlocked CtA also gives the player access to Battle Cry which got reworked and reduces physical resistances of monsters now. You can break physical immunes with this and it stacks with curses! And you can perform warcrys while shapeshifted – it is a massive buff your build so use it in your weapon slot to prebuff (it basically gives +2 skills, one from the runeword and one from Battle command) and as a utility tool – use your weapin swap actively in combat to perform warcrys.
  
• Lidless Wall: Great caster shield overall with skills, %FCR and mana after kill. In this build it is used as prebuff gear – you can even corrupt it for another skill which leads to a +3 all skills off hand, which is he highest you can get in this gear slot.
  

Body Armors:

• Rain [Ort-Mal-Ith]: Really great runeword for just a Mal rune. Got buffed in this mod and offers up to +3 to summon skills. I personally really like the Cyclone armor on struck especially against frame based attacks like Diablos Lightning Hose – it can safe you when you make a mistake or don’t pay attention.
• upped Spirit Shroud: Yes – this thing is good now, really good. It provides a skill, %FCR and CNBF in PD2 as well as huge amounts of flat mdr and high replenish life which is a buffed stat in this mod – if you stack it on different gear pieces the regen is significant. What makes this chest really good is the high potential through corruption and sockets you can get on top of that.
• Arkaine’s Valor: Really great body armour for summoners in general – huge defense rating, +2 skills, high %FHR paired with vitality on lvl. Again – corruptions and sockets bring huge potential. This can be a +3 all skills chest which also work for warcrys

Corruptions to look out for: +1 skill, resists, CNBF, block chance/block rate, cast speed, %PDR, %FHR, Replenish Life

Helmet:

• Aldur’s Stony Gaze: Recieved a massive buff and gives up to +4 to summon skills on top of FHR and cold resists and has huge corruption potential on top of that.
  
• Spirit Keeper: Very defensive helmet which gives up to +3 to a random druid skill in this mod (many great options for this type of build available like: any summon, HotW, Gust, Cyclone Armor, Werebear, Lycanthropy etc.) – maybe not as much damage as other options but versatile.
  
• Jalal’s Maine: got nerfed but is still one of the most well rounded options for any druid build thanks tot he wide variety of stats it provides – makes other gear slots very flexible.
  
• Steelshade: Got reworked and is now one of the best option for any max block build which depends on +skills – it grants massive block chance and block rate… on a helmet! This helm can save you tons of dexterity investment which leads to more effective HP overall.
  

Corruptions to look out for: +1 skill, resists, CNBF, block chance/block rate, cast speed, %PDR, %FHR, Replenish Life

Gloves:

• Trang-Oul’s Claws: Looking for %FCR? Get these! They are better than Magefist since you don’t need the +1 to fire skills and the mana regen and it provides some cold resists instead as well as a higher defense rating.
  
• Bloodfist: Great gloves which you can wear from start to finish – 30% FHR and 40 flat life is huge – you rarely get rare gloves which are better than that.
  

Corruptions to look out for: block chance, block rate, %FCR, Replenish Life, flat life, resists, stats

Boots:

• Waterwalk: are now 40% FRW in this mod, also max fire res and flat life are nice
  
• Aldur’s Advance: the „worse Waterwalk“ in this mod, but cheaper
  
• Hotspur: low level boots with max fire res, fire resist and little life but without %FRW – if you are using a Vigor merc this downside isn’t that harsh they are worth considering
  
• Infernostride: max fire res and %FRW, pretty nice boots overall
  
• Natalya’s Soul: already capped on fire resist? Then this pair of boots might be great for you
  
• rare/crafted boots: rare boots can have a variety of great stats like %FHR, %FRW and resists
  

Corruptions to look out for: CNBF, Curse Duration Reduction, %FRW, %FHR, resists, Replenish Life, %PDR

Belts:

• String of Ears: great belt for Werebear Hybrid since it provides leech on top of %PDR and flat mdr
  
• Verdungo’s Hearty Cord: %PDR and huge amounts of Vitality paired with little %FHR – solid defensive choice
  
• Rare/crafted belt: have huge potential and can be some of the best items in the game.
  

Corruptions to look out for: max res, block chance, %FCR, %PDR, %FHR, resists, stats, Curse Duration Reduction.

Rings:

• Bul-Katho’s Wedding Band: +1 skill, life on level paired with life leech – great slot to get some leech for the werebaer.
  
• Wisp Projector: got reworked in PD2 and provides non class skills now and +1 all skills on top o fit. This nets potentially +4 to HotW – it also has some %lightning absorb which is great (if you consider wearing 2 of them for +8 to HotW on your druid… won’t work sry since non class skill levels are capped to +3 for classes which have the original skill available to them, so +3 is max for druid – for other classes this will stack to +6 of course)
  
• Ravenfrost: Can’t get CNBF on other gear slots? Going for max block? Then this is a great ring for you. Up to 20 dex and 250 AR help you reaching max block and hitting monsters with werebear. The cold absorb is also great to have – consider having one around for heavy cold damage encounters.
  
• Rare/crafted ring: can provide life, stats, %FCR and resists to fill out deficits
  

Corruptions to look out for: %FCR, leech, CNBF, Curse Duration, Resists, Stats

Amulet:

• Mara’s Kaleidoscop: +2 all skills paired with resists and all stats
  
• +3 Summoning magic amulet: Simple but it just works fine, it also can have a nice suffix on top of it like life or %FCR. Since they are fairly common this can be a good target for getting a nice corruption too
  
• crafted caster amulet: can have +2 druid skills and up to 20% FCR with other goodies
  
• Nokozan Relic: worth mentioning since it is fairly common and got buffed. Provides huge amounts of %FHR, fire resist and max fire resist; a good corruption can make it pretty nice.
  

Corruptions to look out for: max res, %FCR, +1 skill, %FHR, block chance, resists, Replenish Life, stats

Inventory:

• 9x Summon Skiller
• Torch/Anni
• Resist/FHR charmes to reach breakpoints
• Life charms

Open Sockets:

Sockets should be used to reach breakpoints where you can with either jewels or runes for purely defensive purpose, no need to look out for offensive stats here. If you are satisfied with your defences go for %magic find.

Mercenary:

Mercs got an overhaul in PD2 to actually bring diversity and chouce to choosing a follower for your build. All mercs now provide some kind of passive aura and some of them have a wider variaty of weapons they can equip. Mercs also have more than 3 gearslots to equip them in this mod – check out the merc section on the wiki for more information.
Act 1 - Fire (Vigor):

The Act 1 rogue merc is actually really useful in this mod. It is my personal choice for a follower for this build. Vigor aura not only provides movement speed to you and your minions but also increases velocity which makes your minions more responsive and act faster! This is a huge improvement to their sometimes clunky minion AI. Otherwise it is ranged attacker, which does not benefit from the melee splash changes – so consider it a support role, not a damage dealer.

Act 2 - Defense (Defiance):

Very good if you are figthing in werebear form often since it boosts your defense further (defense rating works while running/walking in PD2!) – combined with the defense bonus from shapeshifting you can reach some pretty good numbers. I would not go for this if you are mostly in human form, since druid has no way of scaling defense to great effect if not shapeshifted.

Act 5 - Barbarian (Might):

Need more damage? Then this merc might be the choice for you. Might aura got buffed in PD2 and provides a huge boost to your minions. The barbarian merc is also the most durable one and can hold on its own if needed. (nice thing to know: since barb mercs can now equip 2h axes and 2h maces in this mod this merc can wear full Immortal King set and get all the boni from it – if you want your merc to become a walking death mashine go for it; thanks to elemental damage bonus he is able to deal with physical immunes this way)

Merc Weapons:

• Wrath [Pul-Lum-Ber-Mal] in a Chu-Ko-Nu: luxury option with CNBF and higher Amplify damage proc rate than Wildwitch String on an Act 1 merc – still very little damage but you reach 8 frames with it without further IAS investment in other slots.
  
• Wildwitch String: the new go to weapon for breaking phyiscal immunes on Act 1 merc – socket it with 2 shaels and stack off weapon IAS on gear to reach the 10 frames breakpoint (54 IAS needed with 2x Shael in bow) – deals almost no damage but good enough against singel immunes if you wait long enough – Amplify Damage is a huge DPS boost to your minions.
  
• The Reaper's Toll got changes and now has Amplify Damage on hit - overall a really fast and solid weapon with good damage and leech on top of it
  
• Vile Husk: Again, Amplify Damage on Strike is king – your Act 5 Barbarian will help you out greatly with it. (Decrepify got reworked in this mod an no longer provides physical resist reduction => Lawbringer is no option here for breaking physical immunitiy)
  

Merc Body Armour:

• Treachery [Shael-Thul-Lem]: Got nerfed and now only provides a much weaker version of Fade on struck – still a great chest since it provides huge amounts of %IAS and some %FHR
  
• Heavenly Garb: Very overlooked option imo. Sanctuary aura makes it so any physical resist of every undead monster in the game is ignored (the game will treat it as the monster having 0% DR, yes even physical immune monsters!) – most physical immune monsters you will encounter are of undead type so heaving even a seemingly weak lvl 1 aura around will let you deal with them easily, they will fall over like flies.
  
• Templar‘s Might: One of the best reworks in this mod imo – it now provides a lvl 8 Might aura (which got buffed btw) to enhance the damage of your minions and yourself. It has a really high strength requirement so consider sockting -15% requirement jewels into so you don't have to search for extra stats in every gear slot of your merc just that he/she can wear it.
  
• Shaftstop: Very defensive option thanks to huge amounts of %PDR and life – best defensive merc chest in the game (could also be an option for your character to be honst)
  
• The Galdiator’s Bane: Got buffed in PD2 and now provides even more flat pdr and mdr on top of great stats like %FHR, CNBF and great defense. The Attaker takes damage on hit mod got buffed hard so if you want you can stack this attribute on all gear slots and make a thorns merc.
  

Merc Gloves:

• Laying of Hands: damage against daemons, huge fire resist and 20% IAS – could not wish for more.
  
• Dracul's Grasp: got reworked and no longer provides lifetap on hit, still really good gloves for mercs thanks to open wounds, life leech and 20% IAS.
  
• Ghoul Hide: again huge damage potential paired with 20% IAS – you get the theme here, IAS is king in almost all situations.
  

Merc Belts:

• String of Ears: BIS merc belt – nothing else to say here, don’t think anyone would ever consider something else. Not that rare to get, great stats, leech and damage reduction.

Merc Boots:

Same options to consider as for your character – noteworthy mention: Rite of Passage set boots have CNBF in this mod and are not too rare to get; cheap option for your merc.

Merc Helmets:

• Vampire Gaze: The %DR option, very defensive and overall great choice
  
• Andariel's Face: Has +2 skills which apply to merc auras as well as %IAS – really great merc helmet overall
  
• Tal Rasha's Horadic Crest: cheap and great, has everything your merc wants.
  
• Guillaume's Face: Want to stack crushing blow on a Act 5 merc? Go for it, he will be an absolute powerhouse and can solo the game with great gear and your support
  
• Crown of Ages: Very rare but also really good – has 75% curse reduction in this mod which gets rid of curses almost immediately on your merc – also has %DR, great %FHR and 2 open sockets to custumize.
  

FAQ:

How do minions work/scale?

Minions have hidden resists and damage reduction which is not displayed ingame. Their resists scale with skill levels (soft points); their AR and defense scales with monster level, so no need to invest into AR scaling from merc auras. This means minions become automatically more tanky when you switch to a higher difficulty (they don’t get hit by attacks that often) to keep up with the monster scaling a little better. Minions benefit from all auras and buffs like Battle Orders that are applied to them after minion scaling is done multiplicatively. Different minion types generate different threat levels which basically work like a taunt or define how much aggro a minions can draw.

How many minions can I have up at the same time?

12 Ravens, 5 Spirit Wolves, 3 Dire Wolves and 2 Grizzlys on top of 1 spirit whisp and 1 vine of your choice. You can’t have multiple spirits or vines up at the same time in PD2

Do druid minions deal splash damage?

Not all, only the grizzly and vavens perform attacks which deals splash AoE damage; the grizzlys cleave has a big spalsh damage radius, ravens only have a small radius. Wolves don’t have melee splash. Ravens on the other hand automatically chill a monster on attack slowing their action speed. Poison creeper spreads vines on the ground which deal poison damage over time on each frame when monsters stand on them.

How does Cyclone Armor work exactly?

Cyclone Armor is a very usefull tool which prevents a portion of elemental damage before your life orb takes damage. Cyclone Armor applies before resists are taken into account (this is why it drops so fast against heavy elemental attacks) – in PD2 it was given a short cooldown so you can’t spam it anymore so look out for timing it correctly.

How does Gust work?

Gust is a newly introduced skill in PD2 which is a wind based teleport ability. The cooldown gets lower for every soft point into it (so you don’t have to spent as many hardpoints if you don’t want tot o get a reasonable good result) – all cooldowns are shared between abilities which apply a cooldown in D2! So consider that when teleporting around and using Cyclone Armor in between. Gust also applies a short duration stun to surrounding monsters on impact, but deals no damage itself. This stun is very reliable to get around if you have invested in %FCR, %FHR and/or %FBR to not get locked in place.

Call to Arms runeword got nerfed, is it still worth using?

YES – CtA is so good on this build! It provides up to 300 life and 150 mana with good gear to you and your minions/merc for buff duration of 5min (so it is not annoying to keep up) which is significant. Without some +skills it is pretty weak, so don’t think just swapping one on almost doubles your life pool like it does in vanilla – you need investment to make it work. Another great thing in PD2: Battlecry recieved a rework: it now reduces the physical resistance of nearby monsters and can break physical immunity – it also stacks with curses! It is great for this build since you can perform any warcry while shapeshifted which makes having access to battlecry through CtA a pretty nice utility tool on top of it for this build.

Hybrid WerebeaSummoner melee build? WTF?

It is actually viable in this mod and pretty fun and versatile to play around with. Damage is good enough with some investment and skill point focus to handle monsters on your own. You can also just be a support for your minions zoning monsters by applying open wounds to bosses, battle cry against tough elites or to break physical immunes. Or you just stand in the back in werebear form if you don’t want to teleport in this specific moment or spam ravens just to benefit from the huge defensive boost your werebear form provides. You can get 400-500 extra life and triple your defense rating just for shifting to bear form in hard encounters. Lycanthropy scales with softpoints so just investing 1 point while using a Beast weapon can go a long way (you get werebear from the weapon, so you don’t have to spec into it) – just switch between human form and shapeshift form freely depending on the situation.
THANK YOU FOR READING | SPECIAL THANKS | ABOUT THE GUIDE CREATOR Thank you all for reading through all of this, i hope it was interesting and helped you out in some way or another. I decided to write this guide to show a different perspective on approaching build guids and playing PD2 in general. It is only season #1, plenty more to come and this mod is already great – balance isn’t that much off like people claim – I am actually pretty impressed by it getting it done this way on the first iteration.) I really enjoy the PD2 mod so far. Just wanted to thank the whole PD2 Team for all their work, time and passion they invest in there free time to provide us players with a great new and enhanced experience of playing our beloved game Diablo 2. If you have any questions please just ask. Thank you again for reading – more guids to come in the future as I experience new interesting builds.

Before I begin, let me say there’s nothing wrong with being gay, there’s also nothing wrong with being attracted to the same sex in general, but I’ve only ever been attracted to women my entire life and now I’ve lost it, feel some unfamiliar attraction to the same sex, and feel predominantly anxious most of my waking hours. It’s physically painful. This might being the longest reddit post ever.
I (26m) was 7 on September 11, 2001. Living in New Jersey I knew my dad worked at the WTC from time to time, but I didnt know if maybe he was working there on that day. My mom called my school and told them to tell me that my dad was okay, but they didn’t - because other kids’ parents weren’t okay (one of my best friends at the time’s dad was a south tower direct hit, for example). I spent the whole day obsessing and thinking through and worrying and imagining that he was okay, that he wasn’t, what it would look like if he wasn’t, etc. I cried quite a bit over the following months from what I can remember, and that pain stuck with me tightly for many years before it would manifest in it’s own way in conjunction with my other life experiences. And especially after I moved to florida a couple years later, I felt a kind of shame for feeling worse about 9/11 than I should. Another shame that I still carry with me.
You can certainly understand how that situation might’ve made me far more “infatuated”/concerned with my dad’s presence, and I was. The level of comfort I would get from him hugging me was unparalleled - the scent, the arms, the safety. Which feels very weird to type lol. I think even now I don’t see my dad as another person, I see him as the thing I desperately didn’t want to lose - and didn’t.
Now unfortunately, my dad also has self esteem issues masquerading as anger management issues that incorporates some narcissistic traits he likely picked up from his mother without realizing or caring that’s what those were. His anger would flare up unexpectedly out of nowhere, and it would go from 0 to 100 in no seconds flat. I’m not sure if that led to me fearing I had to be perfect or he’d leave (doubt it), or just me viscerally fearing for my safety, or mayyyyybe feeling like I was lucky to have him still so I needed to attend to those emotions, but it stands that I’d get very scared when he’d get angry, and even still do feel my chest and stomach tighten, along with shallowed breathing and on-alert heart rate and all my attention focused on him, other people’s response to him, and his response back to them.
I was very close with my mom and I think I took most of my emotional cues from her, especially on 9/11 when I was in a daze - we had to pick him up in NY because all public transport was stopped. And seeing her get out of the car and hug him and cry was to my recollection the first emotion I’d felt that day, and I felt it through her, which has become a theme in my life, not just with her but with other people. I was often afraid less so for my safety but more so for hers that he’d hit her, not that he ever did. But he’d bang shit and things like that. I’d find myself often waiting and looking for some kind of inclination that he loved her, something I still do today, and that inkling I get feels like such a relief.
My mom was overly loving and overly praising, so most if not all of my self esteem was derived through her and, by that default, other people. But especially her. This came to a head the summer before 9th grade when we got a dog that my dad, brother, and sister wanted and me and my mom didn’t. That caused some friction between my parents and they’d bicker (my mom being overly submissive with her low self esteem would lash out and her getting the last word ever would largely depend on whether my dad let her have it/if he cared to keep going). Long story short I said something snarky about him in his marriage/relationship with his wife and he attacked me. He didn’t hit me or anything, but he angrily came at me and we kind of clasped hands and wrangled them for a little bit before he stopped and left. Oddly, that was not the thing that made me feel the worst about that exchange. I was feeling okay - kinda on edge of course - until after it was over and my mom came over to me and told me something to the effect of “he would’ve beaten you.” I felt betrayed, my heart dropped to the middle of my intestines - it was like all of my will to do anything was being sucked down, like I was freezing up. I can’t adequately describe with words the full-body draining sensation. This is a feeling I would feel quite a few different times in my relationships with women going forward. I hope to be more brief with those.....lol
I’d been broken up with a few times before that experience in middle school - all by the same girl (hello no self esteem/worth). In hindsight I liked the comfortability of knowing for certain she had liked me at one point (less risk), and so it was a constant search to get her to see that she still liked me, I couldn’t focus on liking anyone else (she tried to get me to lol). Basically if the math worked out for her to like me once, then surely I could make that math work again - why worry about other equations that might not even work at all? While breakups made me feel bad, what happened with my mom was more sudden, unexpected, and 10 times worse.
A few months later I started high school and I was talking to a girl, then I saw another girl in my class and she was fit with big boobs and I decided I wanted to talk to her instead lol, so I did. We didn’t talk much, but one day after class we were hugging goodbye and I said “hey do you wanna be my girlfriend?” and she said maybe....cuz she knew I’d been talking to the other girl. Anyway the next day she said yes and we proceeded to date for 13-14 months. We broke up for a few hours 6 months in but outside of that it was fine. In retrospect, I’ve acted in my relationships the way I (or maybe my mom) would have wanted my dad to act with her. I didn’t have a focus on being an individual - I’d make my gf feel good about herself and try to be funny and have fun. You may know that not being an individual in a relationship that requires multiple individuals is not set up to last in a healthy way. Also, my reason for doing things transferred to my gf’s basket - the reason I was working out, studying “hard” (I was getting straight A’s), and that energy of doing things for her fed into me doing things I loved for myself with friends and things like that, even if I wasn’t specifically doing them for her. There was a lot of jealousy in that relationship- she had been cheated on before and was constantly worried and I had some female friends she wasn’t too fond of, and I took that as license (I’d been hella jealous before) to be jealous myself. So if she didn’t respond in a certain period of time I’d be afraid she was cheating, which especially rang true when she visited Brazil for a month or so and our only communication was via email and maybe she hung out with a particular friend that was male or something like that, so plenty of jealousy and waiting around for emails there. Side note: in a call-back to the 9/11 stuff, she got a car at one point and had swimming practice like 20-25 minutes away; so if she told me she was leaving practice and didn’t text me back in 25 minutes I’d start to panic, go on Google and look up if there were any accidents, and just feel that panic and fear for however long it took her to respond. A year or two earlier I had been driving a jetski with my brother and cousin and we (I) hit a wave wrong going 60 and flew off, hydroplaning.....a) I wonder if that played a role in that and b) of note, even though I was the one driving in the crash, I was the only one I trusted to drive the rest of the time.
As you may be able to see, predictability is huge issue for me because up to that point in my life, surprises brought potential doom. So I’d map out how I thought things would go in my head and enjoy them to the extent the events followed the script - not ideal for actually enjoying things.
Jumping ahead, my dad moved to California for work (the 2009 recession) and two weeks later that gf broke up with me. I cared a lot more about the breakup than my dad leaving tbh, and I felt somewhat guilty about it but also because I used him leaving as an excuse for why I responded so badly to the breakup and I don’t think it directly had a major effect, outside of not having a guiding male presence in that time of difficulty (perhaps I’ll touch on this later).
When I say responded poorly to the breakup, I mean it was the only thing I could think about all day every day. I was smart enough so that my grades didn’t “plummet” but I went from top 3% of my class after freshman year to eventually graduating in the top 17%. I had that constant anxiety about the breakup for about 6 months - like all-in anxiety; for about a month an a half I was only interested in listening to one song - Jackson Cage by Bruce Springsteen, which was solely for self soothing purposes and had no emotional relevance to what happened. I’d try texting her a bunch to meet and talk, I sent her nasty Facebook messages pretending to be a friend of mine, I came very close to pressing send on a message to her parents but my own parents caught me in the nick of time, I went through her Facebook constantly and checking her relationship status, I’d set my alarm to be some heartbreak song called Back in Your Arms (also Bruce, maybe I’ll get to that later), and one time a few weeks into the breakup I wrote a legit 10 page letter front and back and biked it 6 miles to her house during a day I didn’t have to go to school. Two days before she broke up with me she told me how much she loved me and when she broke up with me, it made no sense. I also had regret because I texted her sister “I think she’s going to break up with me” but I accidentally sent it to her, and that prompted the phone call where she broke up with me.
A lot of shit, I’m sure there’s more I’m not remembering or caring to bring up. A few months into the pain as it started to subside I started talking to another girl for a little bit and when I was getting ready to ask her out she sent me a text about how she didn’t really like me that was “supposed to be sent to her friend” (I wound up hooking up with her a couple years later, but still). So after that I didn’t really talk or crush on anyone (besides the ex) for about 6 months.
I’ll jump ahead now to college. I was supposed to go to FSU - I had been accepted into the Honors College and was going to be living in the honors dorm with my best friend from 4th grade. I slacked off a lot senior year of high school and got 3 bad grades - 69, 68, and 62 in AP Econ, AP Calc BC, and AP Stats, mostly from not doing homework. I still passed all the exams including a 5 on calculus but fsu still rescinded my acceptance. Devastating. I was hurt and embarrassed. I was so ready for a fresh start with college and to hook up with girls and study to become a doctor, and it was all suddenly ripped right out from under me. I was signing up for courses at the community college when I got a random email from UCF that I hadn’t sent in my security deposit (???). So I wound up getting accepted to UCF about 3 days before the semester started and that’s where I was for my first year of college, double majoring in biology and psychology.
My freshmen roommates were great guys but they didn’t like going out, so I didn’t go out. I spent mostly all my time watching Bruce Springsteen videos on YouTube, playing Madden 2004 on GameCube, and watching porn. I was able to do some intramural sports, but that was it. I spent almost all my time alone. I made one friend that year - a girl who I loved then and love now, who was dating someone else when we met, who I kinda dated for a month when they broke up, who I didn’t talked to for 6 months, who was then my closest friend for 5 years, who I then actually dated for 4 months only to breakup with her because I was feeling a lot of anxiety about being with her in the long term because of x, y, and z reasons. I still get sad thinking about how I haven’t spoken to her in almost 3 years. The only other thing I want to note here is that it was during this time I felt a weird attraction to some random dude in my building who had like an ear gage and maybe a nose ring or something? It was the first time I remember having some weird attraction and as I thought about it I thought “would I want to kiss him?” And I figured that it was a maybe and I went back and probably jerked off to women some more.
Before I started college, my uncle was out of town and told me I could borrow his really expensive car, so I hit up a girl I knew from my street and asked her to go out. We went out and in retrospect she was probably waiting for some kind of move but I was too nervous to try, then we were having dinner and she mentioned “casually” how she wanted to lose her virginity before college. Confident me would’ve said SOMETHING, but the first things I thought of was “my dick is too small and she’ll tell everyone, I probably won’t last all that long” and I could feel myself retracting within myself, so I just said “yeah me too.” That was the first time I didn’t pursue a situation I actively should’ve because of sexual/confidence insecurities. That same girl I mentioned that sent me that text”accidentally” who I hooked up with a couple years later? We hung out a few times that first year of college and I didn’t make any moves for the same reason - fear of being rejected and fearing my dick was too small.
This was in retrospect either the beginning of the end or the fossilization of the ruins of my sexual mentality. I would rarely try to hook up with people for real - I’d try on tinder but my line was something to the effect of “do you want to take my virginity?” It was desperation. Didn’t happen. I turned to Craigslist and found some woman 15 years older than me who was not all that attractive but was a woman with some curves and I wanted sex, and when she said yes i was at the library and I got a severe cold sweat and the most raging hardon I’d ever had, precum literally everywhere, and I was physically shaking. I went home and masturbated, calmed down, and blocked her number. Wouldn’t be the first time I did that.
My third year of college, which would be my last year because I clearly wasn’t having a great time so I graduated early, I got a girlfriend who I kinda liked. We were sexual which was nice and she took my virginity, but 2 weeks in I went down on her, made her cum, and immediately afterwards she told me she loved me. That soured my feeling for her for the entire 6-7 month relationship. Maybe because I wasn’t thinking about love at all, and maybe because it felt somewhat transactional. Even though I wanted sex and basically stayed with her for that reason, in retrospect I still had that reluctance/closed off feeling emotionally and in some ways physically. She would also make me feel bad if she wanted to have sex and I didn’t. I do think this is attributed to my porn use, but I’ve always been the one turning down sex in relationships. Sex came to be about cumming, especially transactionally (I formulaically would want to go down on her before having sex so I could make her cum and not feel as bad about cumming quickly, and if mentally I didn’t have to cum then I didn’t want to have sex, and sometimes I’d be viscerally repulsed by her vagina, and maybe even her. That happened with a couple different girlfriends.
After college I found a new treat - an app that doesn’t exist anymore called Meowchat. Basically you can see people’s profiles around the world, by location, and dm them. With some anonymity of course. I’d get into a habit of writing out sex stories that I thought the girls would find arousing and in return I’d try to get anything from pics, videos, or audios of them fingering themselves, I loved the audios. I would spend hours and hours at a time finding someone or someones to do this with. Me laying there with no need for physics stress to obtain that sexual high was likely very harmful, not to mention I’d conform to whatever the women wanted in order to get what I wanted. Eventually that app closed down and I moved on to cam sites. At first I loved seeing the women (it was something I did in high school even, though I didn’t have the money to pay at that point), but then it became an ego thing where I figured they were used to camming with old men, so I’d flirt a little bit then go private with them to show them what I looked like and I’d get off on their surprised and happy reaction to my image. Then I’d close private and go back to talk with them. Then I’d be able to get off on the idea of hooking up with them because I saw they were attracted to me. No risk of nutting too soon, no worry about being too small. Just the awesome idea of having sex with a sexy woman. I still do this, or at least I did until a few days ago - my goal is to go without any kind of porn or masturbation for 90 days.
I discovered sex visually when I was 7 and was perplexed why the man in the video was peeing on the girl. Then I found porn on my home computer when I was 9 and was running around until I discovered that wasn’t pee lol. I watched porn as much as I could, later on in middle and high school if one of my parents was home from work I’d be pissed that I wouldn’t be able to watch porn. I’d fantasize about having sex with all sorts of women by strategically rolling up a really soft shirt and laying it on my chest so I could imagine feeling them on top of me - mainly my friends’ moms and even my aunts (I’d say don’t judge, but if you’re a person reading this far you can do whatever you damn well please lol). I remember if I couldn’t get porn then I’d use a Victoria’s Secret catalogue or maybe the cover of a Shakira album (which after the first few times kinda got old, I remember being dissatisfied about that). One time I was watching Charlie’s Angels in 4th grade with a friend, he fell asleep and there was a scene of the angels getting drenched in water and I rewound that about 8 times and only stopped because I was afraid he’d wake up. I would print out pictures of nfl cheerleaders in bikinis so I could cum on them (that was 6th grade 🤙🏼). By the time my parents gave me “the talk” in 4th or 5th grade, I found myself pretending to be surprised about what they told me - mostly I was just very uncomfortable, it was like my personal mental space was being invaded. I used anything as lube - maybe shampoo or deodorant if I was using only my hand - eventually that turned into either lotion or vaseline. ——So as I said, there’s nothing wrong with liking dudes, but I don’t think any of this is indicative of any pre-, mid-, or post-pubescent homoeroticism.
Most of my relationships at one point or another involved “another man.” In middle school, that girl started dating another guy who was whimpy and I didn’t understand it. In high school, that gf towards the end started hanging out with a small group of friends that included a couple and some other guy from the water polo team who was taller, older, fitter, and in my opinion generally more attractive than me, this was a short time - like weeks - before the final breakup. I was a douche to a girl who I dated on and off junior and senior year of high school. I wasn’t emotionally attracted to her, but she was really cute and did sexual stuff with me, but I broke up with her a few times. Then one of the times we broke up she started talking to this drug dealer in our high school who was also attractive and had these insane gray eyes that I couldn’t compete with and that made me feel terrible about myself (at one point to prove I was the one she really liked, I leaned in halfway to kiss her and when she leaned in too I stopped and looked at her in an awful “I told you so” way and I still cringe about that). The gf I didn’t like all that much in my third year of college told me my roommate (same best friend from 4th grade) was more attractive than me, also that she was going to see her ex fuck buddy on an over night field trip - nothing happened, but still. A few months after that relationship ended, I met a girl on tinder and we clicked immediately - we went on a date that went really well, we got along well, I legit (naively) thought I was going to marry her and even after the first date, she texted me saying she told her roommates about the date and that they said they wanted to be bridesmaids - on the first date though it looked like she was texting someone with a guy name, then after the second date I asked if she wanted to be exclusive and she told me she didn’t want to see me anymore. I was crushed. I was hung up on her for a few months - I traveled with my family for a few weeks and the whole time was hopeful that we’d rekindle upon my return. She was the first person I texted and she never responded. 5 months later on Instagram I saw she was engaged, a year later she was married, and I think she has a kid now. Then the mother of all trauma related to this walked into my life....
She was kind of cute, she messaged me first on tinder about how she had a fetish for teachers (I’m a teacher) and we quickly began a sexual dialogue. We clicked in a way that neither of us had ever clicked with anyone - sexually, emotionally, mentally. She was 5 years younger but mentally was probably 5-10 years older than me. She was a hyper individual and I was basically a non-individual. My goal was to impress her and make her feel good and surprise her all the time, and for the first few weeks I did. Then I started to get a little bored and she did too. Then she went to a sex part for the first time and lied to me about it - I only knew something happened because the next day I saw the bruises on the inside of her thighs. There’s that draining feeling again. A few days later she left her phone in my car and when I glanced down as I was walking it back into her house I saw a message that said “so did I leave any marks last night?” Drained again. I called it all off. Two days later I decided the high of the drug was more important than the pain of the pitfalls, so I went back to her. We dated 8 months for what was a constant battle of her individuality and my lack of individuality - the highs of our togetherness and the lows of her being with other people. We broke up and got back together constantly. I’d invade her privacy and read her messages on her phone in a panic, looking for something to be panicked and feel bad and betrayed about. She wanted an open relationship and I said fine to it and even tried to hook up with people on my own, but it wasn’t enjoyable and of the two times I had another girl over, the second time I couldn’t get it up because I was upset at the prospect of my gf sending nudes to another guy (though I made the other girl cum twice so I didn’t feel all that bad, but she was hot and I wish I could’ve fucked her). I saw pictures of a few other guys she’d had sex with in her life, and only one that she had sex with while we were together (besides her ex who she cheated on me with early on too). I still have flashbacks to that guy having sex with my girlfriend. I was obsessed at the time so as calmly as I could I’d ask how the sex was and if he was more attractive or better than me etc, and she told me how they’d fucked for like 45 minutes to an hour and that he made her cum 5 times from intercourse (I never last more than 5, if that, and only make her cum when I go down on her). I went through her texts and saw her tell him it was “very very verrrrry good” and he said he loved making her squirt. A month or two later she confessed to me she’d been faking orgasms with everyone she’s had sex with, including me (from intercourse, at least), and I asked about that other guy and she told me she lied to him about it too and that she felt she needed to prove something to me? Or test me? She also said she never squirted before and I feel like the dude would know if she squirted or not from that vantage point. So yeah I still flashback and feel inferior to the image of some guy who’s attractive and fit having better sex with my girlfriend who at that point was the sole source of whatever happiness I felt and self worth I had and making her feel better than I could. It still pains my chest to this day, though not as bad as it did for the first 8 months. In my mind I knew we shouldn’t be together long term and that we wouldn’t, but I couldn’t let go. And when she finally did let go, for real, 8.5 months in, I was back to that constant anxiety 24/7. This time though, I didn’t have school or basketball or band practice to take up my time. I was a teacher on summer break. I paced around my house for probably 6 hours a day, scheming and planning and playing out scenarios in my head for what I could do to get her back. I was living on a week to week basis - thinking I didn’t want to come off as too needy or desperate and to give her space from me. This lasted over 2 months until I saw that like a month after breaking up she already had a new “soul mate” who she may or may not still be with. That was crushing, but it at least prompted me to move on kind of (same with that gf from high school, I kinda forced myself onward after she got a new bf (who she is now married to)). I know I was awful in the relationship too, but I always justified my bad actions as being logical necessary responses to the pain I was feeling she put me through, even though I knew I signed up for it every time.
I lost all sexual desire when that breakup hit. I was anxious always and couldn’t get turned on. I wanted to, but I found myself being anxious and turned off at the sight of women. I tried sexting with other people on reddit but one in particular was just too chubby for me and I felt almost induced to vomit, which is more I think a comment on my mental state than her herself. Anyway eventually I was able to start masturbating again, mostly with cartoons and stuff, and it just wasn’t as pleasurable as it had been in the past. Enter, California model. Earlier on in my last relationship I posted a story about our first sexual encounter in which I took an audio of the whole thing - I just had surgery so I couldn’t have sex but I did everything to her and audio recorded the whole thing. A month or two after I posted a girl messaged me on reddit about and we talked for a bit, had some phone sex, and she was actually there for me when the gf was off fucking that dude I talked about. We talked intermittently when I was horny, mostly because a) I thought she was cat fishing me bc she was a literal 11/10, b) I know for sure I’m not good enough for her and she only want to fuck because she was so turned on by the story and audio that she listened to all 40 minutes of it 30+ times. She told me she came so hard during our phone sex (which I didn’t even get off to after the first time) that she cried. Anyway, eventually she proved to me she was who she said she was and she was going to be visiting an hour from me so she wanted to fuck. I started to have those same panics of I’m too small, she’s fucked athletes and famous people, I’m. It gonna last too long, I’m a hairy guy and haven’t been in great shape, and I could start to feel myself get really anxious and nervous and withdrawn. Then one night we were talking and we got into the stupidest of arguments where she was so passive aggressive and I was feeling so bad and angry and hurt; the next morning I woke up and masturbated, and just as I was cumming I felt an awful feeling looking at the woman who was getting fucked - it was a total aversion - and the second I came all of my attraction to women completely switched off like a light switch. It hurt so much that I remember afterward thinking that looking at the man didn’t hurt and if anything felt like a relief. Naturally I panicked, and so started this process of having to figure my shit out.
What’s happened since then in September? I realized I needed to be more of myself, my own person. I also realized porn and sexual desire was basically a coping mechanism that I started just using all the time, even with things I wouldn’t normally be able to derive sexual pleasure from - like men or cars or other inanimate objects. Not that I’d be aroused by them, but I’d look at them (this is going back to high school) as though I was looking at a woman and trying to draw the sexual energy/pleasure from her image. Idk if that makes sense to anyone else, but that’s what happened. I posted on gay and asked questions and some guy responded to me and was kind enough to talk to me on the phone for like an hour and a half - he found out later in his mid 20s that he was gay and sharing some of his experience and feelings and some things seemed to line up. Later that week when I masturbated without porn I decided to just let the thought come, and that thought was just the male essence and that’s why I came to. It wasn’t a great feeling that I’d been missing, but it felt like such a relief. Id still be anxious a lot and notice how I was now automatically looking at guys - it wasn’t sexual, but I was just so immediately drawn to guys, particularly when watching sports. I started the typical OCD things of testing myself if I was having any groinal responses, seeing if I liked a particular mental image of doing a sex act, etc. I realized how uncomfortable I was talking with my male friends and how I was constantly worrying about how I was being judged. In retrospect I was more comfortable with female friends a) because they would give me reassurance and support my self esteem, b) I could more predictably control their perception of me/get approval from them on demand, and c) I could picture myself having sex with them if I wanted and knew they wanted to. As I’m writing this, I’m also realizing I had female friends I wasn’t attracted to but who were attracted to me, and in hindsight I’m not sure if I wouldn’t like the thought of having sex with them because maybe I never truly liked women, or more probably that my perception of women and sex was completely warped by the porn I’d been watching in some form or another since I was 9. It was like a split of some kind - I’d get my emotional and ego needs filled from those female friends and my sexual needs filled by porn. It also sucked when they’d either be outright passive aggressive about me not wanting to be with them or they’d be very suggestive and I’d feel myself withdraw more.
This dichotomy of my attraction through puberty and my withdrawal/lack of attraction now and the spectrum that lies between is what is causing me so much angst now. Internally, I know I want to be with women and when I fantasize it’s always about women, but in terms of attraction to the world outside of myself, I’m still either a) finding myself simply drawn to men, b) feeling more sexual excitement when I test my feelings between men and women (which I try to quash, but when I try to let them flow, I usually feel them and they pass and turn out to not even be sexual), c) there have been a few times now in the last few months where I’ve seen the image of a guy and actual felt a penile jolt - most notably from a football player whose image ive seen literally countless times over the last 17+ years and have never felt that way for before, or d) the images on my head of some of the guys who are the ones associated with past love interests. The scary thing is that attraction feels readily accessible but mentally when I really put pedal to the metal and think of even kissing a guy I feel myself shrinking away and not wanting to do it at all. When I’m asked “whats wrong with being gay/liking men?” My first thing I think is “I like girls.” Yeah. Honestly I don’t even think I’d care if I liked dudes too, my primary concern is I know I want to be with women but right now mentally I only feel anxious and dismissive and angry and hurt by women. There was a lot of negative self talk about women, like how they’re stupid and dumb and awful and terrible and I think that really stuck with me over time: it’s now my automatic feeling. When I picture fucking a girl now, maybe a particular girl, it feels so good deep inside and then I think about how that would feel on the outside and it doesn’t feel good, maybe it hurts or maybe I feel nothing - there’s clearly a disconnect. And I could at this point never see myself loving another woman in any capacity, even as friends and I have a few female friends, and especially not spending my life with one. That’s led to me testing myself of “could I feel good on a couple with a guy” and when I started testing the answer was no, but now it starts to feel more yes but when I get to that point I stop immediately and try to return to the present. It just doesn’t jive with my personal lifelong identity and interests.
I forced myself to stop watching porn for a few weeks, which wasn’t all that hard because I had no sexual desire. Then I started to feel like I could watch porn and not be repulsed by the women, but only lesbian porn, so I did. And I did it a lot over some days. Then as those days went on I started doing it even though I didn’t get excited about the women and I was doing it just to cum and feel less anxiety about still telling myself my attraction had returned. Then eventually I fell right back into the no attraction and the cycle started again. Feel gay - no porn - feel some attraction but still doubt my straightness - abuse the fact that I’ve regained attraction or gotten rid of lack of attraction and masturbate a lot - lose attraction - start over. That’s where I am now. This time is different though. It’s been almost four days, I disallowed Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and all porn from my phone and have decided to not watch anything or masturbate at all for at least 90 days to start. I’m tremendously scared and anxious always, even when I’m not. I hate this uncertainty - it’s uncertainty going back to 9/11 that probably makes me hate uncertainty so much. I look back at my masturbatory habits and fantasy subjects from my early life and that makes me feel more secure that I’ll get through this - but what it I don’t? What if I’m stuck having to have sex with people that mentally I don’t want to - just because they’re the ones I’m now attracted to? I’m still uncomfortable around my dad and other men, especially ones who are more fit than me or more attractive or just physically bigger, or who have a bigger personality. I feel small, and in someway I want to feel small. When I run through the sexual feelings I have for men now, like I said it isn’t even sexual - it just ends up being me wanting to be held safely like a child. I’ve became pulled toward men and away from women due to all of the things I’ve experienced and it seems that a lot of wires got crossed. I’m trying to unravel them. I’m trying to practice looking at men in the way that I know I want to and should given how I’ve felt in the past, and the same with women. It’s probably hurting more than helping because it still revolves around relieving the obsession, but I’m trying to do what I think is best for myself. I’m going to a new therapist who is great and she seems very much oriented around solving problems, so we’ll see how that goes. I just want to not feel anxious around my parents anymore. I love them both and they both have their issues but I it feels like I hate them. I pull away and cringe whenever my mom says anything positive to me or tries to give me a hug, and I harbor so much resentment for my dad that is only countered by the fact that I’m so thankful he didn’t die. This is the part that’s making me cry now.
I feel like I’ve just started living vicariously through other people and I wonder if my attraction to men is the fact that I’m pulling away toward myself, but in other people there’s safety because I don’t have to risk what ever it is they risk to be alive. Started living through porn stars because I loved imagining having a big dick, living as famous people like Bruce Springsteen who got all of the love and adoration from fans and just being free to have fun on stage, maybe even through other attractive people because I know women would be automatically drawn to them. I think I adopted a female mentality over time so I could predict their responses so I wouldn’t get hurt. Maybe that’s why I’m so sensitive to their passive aggression or the standards I project onto them judging me by.
I know I love women, I know I’m going to get through this. I know I will find my attraction again and that I’ll be able to live my life anew as myself with them. I don’t know when that will be, but even deeper than the doubt, I know it’s true - the doubt is relegated to the here and now, but my truth is eternal.

- This is a diary just for me, although I am married and organise finances with my husband. I am generally the money (over)organiser, and as he’s just starting back at work I’ve been handling all the bills for a while. My finances are effectively that of a single person who eats and drinks a lot!
- I just realised I left a few small but important details out. I shower etc every day, and drink a morning coffee each day, too. I have a pretty basic skin care routine - a daily face wash, day cream and night cream. I wear a BB cream routinely and additional sun cream if I know I'm going to spend a long time in the sun. The UV rays here are brutal. I don't usually wear much makeup unless I'm particularly in the mood for it.
- She-hes
- Sorry, I wrote a novel.
- All figures in this diary are in AUD, which at the moment is at 75 US cents and 56 UK pence to the dollar (grumble grumble, it was 70c and closer to 50p a few months ago).
Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance (and how you got there): About $40,000 (yes, this is very low, I lived abroad for a number of years).
Equity if you're a homeowner
- I estimate we have about $100,000 in equity in our house in a village in Tasmania (140k remaining and I'd expect to sell between 240k-250k). We also outright own a little block of land in the west of the state that’s probably worth about 20k.
- We own two cars, one 15 years old and the other even older is kept as a backup. They are worth about $3000 combined.
Savings account balance: $28000 spread across two accounts– up until last week this was sitting in our mortgage redraw account (saving us money on interest) but we just fixed the mortgage at a much, much lower rate. I’ve parked it in savings while in the process of working out what to do with it.
Credit card debt: N/A, I have a credit card for airline points but pay it off in full each month.
Student loan debt:
My current tally is at about $16,000 of student contributions. This was for an undergraduate degree in communications and a postgraduate certificate. This is lent under a government program (HECS-HELP) that is effectively interest free (i.e. the total owing is adjusted according to the inflation/cost of living/something rate) and I pay a small percentage of my income each year at tax time. It is not something that I think about very often.
Income Progression:
I've been in my current set-up for about three years. The first and second years I made about $40k and last year I finally started to see some payoff, which was then decimated by Covid. The headline figure ($62k) was my pre-tax total last year and I was expecting higher this year until… well, you know. My final figure for this year is uncertain. I’m hoping it will end up about the same, but realistically may be a bit lower.
Monthly Take Home:
It changes month-by-month. Normally I have about $4000 left over after tax/Medicare/HECS money is put aside.
IF YOU COMBINE INCOME WITH A S/O PLEASE INCLUDE ALL OF THEIR INCOME AS WELL:
My husband has just started a job and I think he should earn approx. $50,000 if he stays in his starting position (which has part time hours and is thus a bit low). I'm not actually certain what he's likely to receive long term, which is why I have not phrased this as a joint diary. I’m not trying to be intentionally vague on money (although I am with work stuff), but I am working with several unknown variables.
Since March, he’s been entitled to small unemployment payments which put $1-200 dollars in his pocket each week (depending on my income) which covers his phone bills and gives him a little spending money. These payments will end now; the safety net has been a godsend but I’d much prefer not to need it.
Section Three: Expenses
House expenses:
We have a small mortgage remaining towards which I pay either $800 or $1000 a month depending how the days fall (my actual minimum is $130/week so I slightly overpay). I also pay $360 a quarter in council rates (i.e. to fund local gov’t services), water costs about $300/quarter and electricity costs about $400/quarter on average.
Renters / home insurance: $95.
Retirement contribution: not at the moment. The game plan is to get rid of the mortgage and then channel all that money into superannuation.
Savings contribution: Whatever is left over.
Debt payments: Only the house at the time of writing. As you’ll see, I am attempting to get a car loan.
Donations: I give when I can; about $500 last year. As I expect we’ll be doing much better this coming year, I intend to do a bit more.
Wifi/Cable/Landline: $80 a month for internet. This is expensive, but reliable access is necessary for work and Australia is not noted for amazing internet. I pay more to have an acceptable speed.
Phone: $35 a month (paid off, so this is just for calls/data)
Subscriptions: Nope. We had Netflix but rarely used it and the same went for Amazon, so we’ve cancelled them in favour of reading/podcasts. We’ll sign up again to one of the services when we see a series worth paying for.
Gym membership: nope, it’s 40 minutes’ drive to the nearest gym, I live a short drive from some lovely beaches, so they take the gym’s place.
Pet expenses: My cat K costs about $30 a month for food/litter and $35 for pet insurance. I love her dearly (and she and my foster kitty will feature heavily in this diary), but she is an expensive little arsehole.
Car payment / insurance – I’d estimate the cars cost about $200 combined per month on average for necessities including fuel, insurance, servicing and registration (this week was much higher than average for fuel).
Regular therapy: Nope.
Paid hobbies: None that cost.
Day 1.
7am - Wake up. This is my husband A's first proper day of work after a long (looooong) bout of unemployment or short term/low hours contracts. He did his induction for a job yesterday that he's super excited about. We have breakfast (eggs on toast) and we leave for me to drive him to work at around 8am. We live in a small village in Tasmania, a half-hour or so from the nearest 'city' (Launceston). A, a long time big-city boy, does not drive but has agreed to learn. We're holding off on this until we get the new car, and so I will do a LOT of driving this week.
8.30am - Drop A off and put $25 of petrol in the car, which was almost empty. I decide to stretch my legs and drive up to the gorge and spend about an hour wandering about.
** I should point out here Australia is virtually Covid free at this point and Tasmania has been completely Covid free for many months (edit: the day after I wrote this, repatriation flights gave Tassie a few cases in hotel quarantine, but there are still none in the community). I do disinfect my hands every time I enter and leave a store and social distance plus some businesses have lower capacity due to Covid and/or require patrons to leave their details, but overall life is pretty much back to normal. My shopping, appointments and eating out this week would be indefensibly reckless if I were living in a community with community transmission of Covid, but the situation is not the same here. We strictly followed all regulations to avoid catching/spreading Covid all through autumn/winter when it was necessary. **
10am - Drive back into town and park at a pet supplies store. ($25 for dry food – we have a cat and are currently fostering another. The rescue organisation provides everything the foster cat needs but we do sometimes buy stuff when it’s more convenient than going to pick up supplies off them. This should supplement our cat’s wet food for a few months).
10:30am - We are in the market for a new car! A's new job will require a LOT of driving and my 20-year-old car is too much of a risk. I walk through a few dealerships to look over a couple and try to get a gauge on the cost/value relationships at different price points, and the relative merits of buying new/dealer used/used. New's gonna be the way to go for sure, but then there’s still so many variables.
12pm - I have a bit of time to kill. I drive to the city park and find a parking spot near the city park (I put in three dollars in shrapnel for parking) then find a nice comfy spot of grass to read a book.
1pm-ish. Japanese bento for lunch costs $17. Japanese is a famously healthy cuisine, which makes tempura and katsu a healthy combo, right?
2pm - Orthodontist appointment. I'm gonna need braces. By a stroke of luck/timing (and with the requisite massive privilege disclaimer) I made this appointment last week and almost the minute I got off the phone to book it, my parents rang saying they were giving me and my brother a cash gift to celebrate the fact that mum is retiring and cashing in her pension fund (superannuation for any Australians reading). When I told them I'd likely be putting it towards orthodontics, they offered to just pay. I am paying for the other work and pre-appointments but I am relieved not to be staring down what is likely to be a huge bill. My parents have worked very hard through their lives, and I want them to enjoy their retirement. I do NOT expect any kind of inheritance, I want them to spend/donate in lifetimes, but generosity is hard to turn down at the moment. This consultation costs $90.
3pm - Stop at the supermarket for some basic toiletries that we've run out of. $15.
3.30pm - Home. Get pizza dough rising. Mollify our resident cat, K, who is grumpy at me. I work from home (although today is my second day of a much-needed six-day break) and A has obviously been at home most of the time while job hunting/pandemicking, and we've created a bit of a spoiled monster who expect a human to be available at all times. She sulks for a bit then accepts pats. Go check on our foster cat G, who is recovering from an injury and lives in my work office a.k.a the spare room when we’re not home and overnight (K is a chunky, chunky, food thief and G needs time to eat in peace). G squeaks and squeals with excitement to see me and I bring her out to play.
4pm - I have been procrastinating getting organised with car stuff but it needs to happen. I make a phone call to my bank and get the paperwork rolling on pre-approval for a car loan.
5pm - Cleaning. Clothes washing. Cooking. Happy as I am to have A back working, he's done all this crap for the last year.
6pm - A calls. Today is our dry run for getting him home by the limited public transport available. He was out late and the next bus will get him in after 7.
7pm - Hang out clothes, make pizza. Eat pizza - it's okay, but not my best effort, the dough could have used a slower and cooler prove.
7.30pm - A is home, and I collect him from the bus stop five mins away. We have a quiet night with him watching a series and eating the rest of the pizza, and me reading a crime thriller. A told me the latest Ian Rankin was great, and he was right.
9pm - play with the foster kitty and read in bed with a glass from a bottle of wine I have in the fridge.
11pm - A has fallen asleep on the couch. Drag him to bed and lights out.
Daily total: $175
Day 2:
7am - Wake up and mindlessly scroll for half an hour then get dressed and take A to work. 9am - I didn't eat breakfast before we left and I am starving. Drop by a cafe for banana bread and a coffee. Unhealthy and expensive but worth it on both counts ($10-ish, I forgot to record it).
9:30am – Food shopping time. I got bread, canned salmon, carrots, onions, mushroom, tomatoes, wombok cabbage, garlic, a bunch of in-season fruits, eggs, milk, yoghurt, sour cream, multiple cans of beans and chickpeas, olive oil, gran padano cheese and probably a couple of other things. ($93). After that, I put petrol in the car ($25).
11am - I test drive two cars!
12 - Get home and do a little work, planning mostly.
1pm - Make a cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch using the last of some cheddar from the last shop.
2pm - Part of the reason I took this week off was to get a bunch of life admin done (I also have a bunch of teeth appointments, and we weren’t sure exactly what times A was going to need me as chauffeur). I get the application on the car loan finalized, then sort out documentation for a pet insurance claim from surgery K had a few months ago, look at plane tickets for a trip A will need to take next year and finally do a bit more car research. I should hear back in 48 hours so this gives me time to plan and think. I have one cat curled up on one side of me and the other cat on the other. Very comfy.
4pm - Make dinner of spicy yellow split peas cooked down in coconut milk, and leave it for flavours to settle. A refers to this meal as ‘Thai dhal’ which is both correct and incorrect. I make a giant batch and freeze most of it. There will be 3/4 meals each with rice or flatbreads.
7:30pm - Pick A up from bus stop and we eat dinner.
11pm - finish book, lights out.
Daily total: $128
Day 3
7:30am. Today is a struggle to wake up. Quick breakfast of toast with vegemite.
9am - drop A off at work and call a few dealerships to test a few more cars. I drive two slightly more expensive ones and they are obviously nicer to drive. I am starving so I pick up some muesli bars between appointments ($5) and eat one.
12am - I have a tooth x-ray to complete for the orthodontist. Thankfully, it is bulk billed (i.e paid for by the government).1pm - Home and starving again, the muesli bar did not hit the spot. I have leftover lentils and rice for lunch, and they fill me up.
2-4pm - I've finished the Ian Rankin book and am back into my favourite series, the Discworld (Wyrd Sisters). I switch between reading this and reading through reviews of cars and playing with the cats.
4pm - back in the car, I'm having a second drive of a car I drove earlier this week (the day before this diary began) as the first time I drove it I was still adapting to automatic. I like it but it’s not very powerful, but I like the more expensive ones I tested on day two more. So confused.
6.30pm - I have a dentist appointment – cleaning and a battery of tests. It is long, tedious, uncomfortable, and generally unpleasant. $400
8pm - I’m out, and tired, hungry and cranky. I grab a Japanese rice bowl and inhale it in about ten seconds (this verb is massively overused in the refinery MDs which annoys me, but I assure you it is justified in this instance). $15
9pm - Home. Cats. Book. Bed.
Daily total: $420 (ouch).
Day 4:
9am - Wake up. It’s A’s first day off and neither of us feel like doing much so we lurk on the couch, read, eat toast, and talk through the week.
1pm - I sauté down the cabbage with two large, shredded carrots, and a bunch of chopped spring onions from the garden with sesame oil and soy sauce. I serve part of this with leftover rice and a gochujang-based sauce (the chilli paste itself, rice wine vinegar, tamari and a pinch of sugar all shaken together in a jar. It keeps for ever in the fridge and elevates everything it touches) for lunch, and reserve most of the mixture. It makes a great filling for steam buns and for stuffed omelettes, both of which I intend to make this week (later update – I was too lazy to make bao and ate most of this mixture as omelette stuffing).
2pm - we head out and grab a few things I forgot to get earlier this week: (kitty litter, toilet paper) along with some nicotine lozenges for A and dinner ingredients for tonight. We rarely cook with meat but are craving it, so we also get ingredients for a Laos-style laab ($53; those stupid poison lollies cost a bomb but he’s trying super hard to quit).
3pm. Life admin round two. I finished a graduate certificate a month ago and will upgrade to a masters. I won’t directly continue on with diploma/masters offered by the university I did the grad. cert. with. It was a good course and a good uni, but I’d like to slightly switch disciplines. I spend the afternoon researching and am tossing up between starting next February and Feb 2022 and between two universities.
4pm – I was expecting to hear back from the bank about my car loan by now. I call through and are told that the loan has been temporarily not approved because there are more questions that need to be answered. I have not been contacted to answer these questions. The application is still active and I’ve provided more documentation, but it’s clear that although my income is sufficient for the loan this is not going to be an easy process.
4:30pm – I call the bank we have our mortgage with and am told in no uncertain terms that (even though we actually have the money in savings with them) there is no prospect of a loan because my income comes from abroad. They don’t even ask A’s salary! Thank Christ I bought that wine earlier. We’ll wait to see if my bank comes through next week, and if not then probably wait another month and buy outright.
5pm – dash out and grab a nice bottle of wine for me and for A ($15) (edit: just realised I got this and the the previous comment the wrong way around. Whoops).
6pm – cook dinner and we eat it while talking through cafinance options. We have the money to be cash buyers for the cheaper of the two I’m deciding between, which means we can say sod the bloody banks and save on interest in the process. That said, we are reluctant to go down to inadequate savings in an unstable world, and a part of that money is earmarked to contribute to a postgrad diploma A will start in a few months.
8pm – the cats clear my cranky mood. Foster kitty, G, desperately wants to be friends with K. K’s way of making friends is to play and chase - to K, humans are for cuddles, cats are for fun and never the other way around – but she is twice the size of G and intimidates her. K has also taken a while to come around to G, possibly because G walks strangely due to a leg injury, maybe because she is basically the size of a guinea pig, or perhaps because her meow sounds like more a bleat (she was completely silent when we got her, and is still working out the whole communication thing). Just now, though, K wants to play and G holds her nerve. They chase each other through the living room and kitchen until G goes too close to K’s (empty) food bowl… game over.
9:30pm: we spend the rest of the night reading (me) and watching series (A) and have an early night.
Daily total: $68
Day 5
6am: K decides she doesn’t want to wait for her normal breakfast time of 7am and slaps me in the face before kneading her claws into my skull to make sure I get the message. I lock her in the living room but can’t get back to sleep.
7am – Up, breakfast, drive A to work etc. I fill up with $30 again on the way, arrive home about 10am, have a few soft-boiled eggs with toast soldiers, and then spend the morning reading/relaxing and chatting to friends online.
12pm: Heat up lentils with some of the leftover rice from last night (sticky rice, I wasn’t sure if it would heat up alright but it did).
1pm: I go for a walk on the beach nearest to my house and get back around 3pm. I read through the vet notes provided to support an insurance claim for A procedure K had a few months ago as I finish submitting the claim and am enormously amused to see she’s described as being ‘very, very, very difficult to handle’. She’s a sweetheart normally, doctor, I swear… it’s just that your colleagues have a track record of sticking things up her butt and she doesn’t love that. She knows what vet consultation rooms mean and makes her feelings known. The procedure, consultations and medicine were expensive and I’m hoping to get about $800 back.
4pm: leave to go get A and stop for a bottle of wine on the way ($10).
6pm: Dinner is mushroom linguine (based on a carbonara), all the ingredients of which are in the house, and it comes out great. We listen to a few history podcasts while watching the cats play and then suddenly it is midnight.
Day total: $40
Day 6:
Back to work. I wake up at 7am, start my first class at 8am and finish at 4pm, and spend all day in my office. It’s a nice easy day. I have toast for breakfast and leftover lentils and jasmine rice (I boil up loads for leftovers and to make fried rice in a few days) for lunch and snack on some of the fruit I bought on day one. I spend the day staring at and occasionally talking into the computer. After work I go for a walk on the beach, and then cook (eggplant parmy with focaccia - I started the focaccia just before work) dinner. I also make a spicy kidney bean and black bean stew which will serve as the basis for a few easy meals on days I need to collect A from work.
A does a bunch of yard work and laundry (supervised closely by K), gives the house a once over, and then gets into some pre-study for his course next year. This is a pretty standard day except I normally finish a bit later. G hangs out with me in the office all day when I’m working and she makes work days go faster. A is campaigning hard to keep her and there’s a solid chance he’ll get his way, but I still think it might be better for her to find a home with a cat that wants to snuggle rather than play.
Day total: 0.
Day 7
7am Up and immediately into the car to drive A to the bus stop (the stop is just out of a reasonable walking distance). I’d arranged my hours to be able to drive him in for the times he anticipated, but there have been a few changes and they have requested him to do a few extra days and the bus times don’t work out. He’s going to have a big week considering travel.
8am: Start work. It’s a pretty quiet day and everything goes smoothly, with the cats supervising me. I make an omelette stuffed with the cabbage/carrot/onion mixture from the other day about 1pm. I have granola and the end of a tub of Greek yoghurt mid-morning.
5pm - I leave to get A.
When I get home, we have the beans with rice and sour cream and the end of an avocado (from I don’t even remember when, but it’s still edible) that was lurking in the back of the fridge. We have it with the rest of the wine from day 5, which has survived passably well in the fridge.
Lights out for him at 9pm and me at 11pm (I pushed through to finish my book 😊)
Day total: 0.
Week total: $831
About $500 of that was dentist/orthodontist stuff, $80 on petrol. The rest was a few meals out, a couple of bottles of wine, and groceries.
Reflections: Obviously, this was not a normal week, and spending this much each week would wipe out the gains from A working. That said, the vast majority of the spend was at the dentist/orthodontist (unavoidable) and on petrol (technically avoidable, but the bus system here is expensive). I finished the week with a full fridge and a full tank of petrol and it should be another 3-4 days until I need to do more than buy a few cupboard basics. I expected worse, TBH.

Finding time to write has been difficult, but this is my first attempt at something longer than a reddit post. It is only half-completed first draft. Any feedback would be massively appreciated! Thank you!
For the first time I could remember, there was nothing that had been left to the last minute. All things considered a rather momentous occasion. No agitation, no plans on dismembering the thickly bearded, traditionally dressed, pot-bellied, presumably, Muslim, Uber driver on the side of the motorway and continuing the journey myself in his Shackelton would have been proud of this Prius. Although thinking about it, the last time I was behind a wheel almost resulted in a power shortage in a remote village in North Zambia. Maybe for the better. Horses for courses I reasoned.
A little fidgety, yes, but I'd always been this way. Hopefully, nothing to draw the unwanted glares of the enforcers of the empire that swarmed places like Luton Airport. United had scrambled their way to the Europa Cup final. Not quite the Champions League Final but life felt good. Its all relative they said and they were probably right. Mr Ronald McDonald had fleeced me enough times into buying the supersize milkshake when compared to the price of the small one to agree wholeheartedly. My small angular faced drug dealer used the same tricks as well. What a bunch of exploitative wankers. Albeit smart ones.
For his splendid conversation skills, I decided to give the top fella £5. 0.5% of me hoped he didn't spend it on funding terrorism, but 99.5% understood that way of thinking was the Daily Mails fault. Cant brainwash me so easily you bastards. Anyway, we were still in the wake of the Manchester terror attacks so I could be forgiven for the invasive thought.
This was the first mini leg in a marathon to the Friends Arena in Stockholm and currently cruising through at what seemed like a world record pace. Like any good relay sprinter, I needed some help. Finding a little secluded corner in the car park was easy. Sprinkling some super soft Amnesia hash via Morroco into a joint also went without any trouble. It’s always funny to watch smokers when they know it’s going to be their last fag in a while, shit gets emotional. Expertly I chose to pair my lightly spiced zoobie with a bitter Americana from a Cafe Nero truck that was parked adjoining the entrance.
Rolling into the airport, feeling like a fucking top boss, Luton’s very own Don Corleone. The holy trinity of Nicotine, THC, and Caffeine pumping through my veins. Fuck yeah. This is bliss. What should I do? Get a big fat Burger King. Or maybe pick up a book or two. Could even push the boat out and get convinced by a lady to buy an aftershave I didn’t need. My imagination was drifting, the options were fucking limitless. Eat your heart out Bradley Cooper. Casually strolling up to the departure screen to check my gate number, something suddenly clicked "Luton's own Don...". Oh Fuck. Shit. Shit. Cunt. It all abruptly banged me right in the fucking goolies. Only in the wrong fucking place. This is a god damn Easy Jet airport and I'm meant to be flying with Ryanair. Fucked, was an understatement, as probably was a massive bell-end, call the sterilization squad, idiot.
Stansted Airport was an hour away by road and my flight departure time was also just about an hour away. Although I wasn't so well endowed in some areas, Maths couldn't be counted as one of them. My DNA did show as Indian. However, this didn't need much calculation. The short story was the same as the long one. Fucked.
For Hanuman’s sake. Why do I always do this? Why? How? Rhetorical questions but if you want an answer my best guess would be Bill Gates had something to do with it. Nothing to do with the snowballing effect of consuming copious amounts of Mary Jane this morning- over the last 17 years. Pessimistically yet frantically searching for the next flights leaving from both airports seemed an exercise in futility. Which proved right.
Obviously, they all cost more than £700, all the(other) glory hunting London Mancs heading to the game in Sweden. Couldn’t really afford that unless wanting to survive on a nutritious university diet of cornflakes and water for my stay in Scandinavia. Not having many options left, doing as all respectable men have done throughout the history of the world, I resorted to bribing God and said my prayers whilst offering to stop gambling smoking drinking and whatever else he wanted me to give up. Pelting it back into the car park, there were people in the queue but this was an emergency. So I flung myself across the back-seat of the first taxi and screeched at the poor befuddled man my time ticking bomb of a predicament.
The weasely looking man raised an eyebrow, taking an eternity to consider, he thought we could make it. Of course, he fucking does, he’s happy to take my money for a lost cause. What a fucking twat. I was starting to feel the pressure if you couldn’t tell. Whatever at least we were on our way. The next hour consisted of what I was trying to avoid earlier: Mainly looking for easily accessible shallow graves en route. The village didn't really need power anyway. Occasionally I would get distracted from the task in hand and check Google maps which confirmed we were on the tightest of margins.
Is he driving slow on purpose? Why the fuck do I always do this shit? All I had to do was check my boarding pass or the confirmation or anything else? What the fuck is wrong with my brain?
Eventually, we got to Stansted 10 mins before the scheduled flight departure time. Shouting at the driver to say thanks felt insincere as only 20 minutes ago I had wished a terrible fate upon the poor unsuspecting man. Boris had started a chain reaction of insincere promises which 52% of the idiotic nation had swallowed up only to backtrack immediately the day after the referendum. Sprinting top speed into the airport, never really a wise idea for an unshaven brown man, not least the day after the Manchester terror attacks, but what choice did I have? Screeching around the corner and ahh motherfucker. My worst nightmare. The queue to take you through immigration was pretty long and fucking windy. Undeterred, channelling my inner Lewis Hamilton I slalomed past the first bunch of commuters. Less elegantly bundled past a couple more, mumbled a few apologies, under a few barriers, around a pair of others. The promised land was in sight. Only one more row to get through.
When from out of nowhere, well, not exactly out of nowhere because he was a rather large individual. This random fuckface blocks my path. The geezer needed panoramic mode to take selfie.
I step right, he leans right, I go left, he leans left, I try to sell him the dummy but he blocks again. He must have done Karate as well.
‘If I have to wait in the queue so do you’ says the hater.
I try to quickly reason ‘My flights about to depart, please let…’.
He cuts me off mid-sentence ‘I don’t care, I don’t care, mate’.
I quickly realise what kind of party it is. FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER. My blood boiling with rage. There was nothing I could do to get around him and the doubts were now starting to creep in. After waiting for the most excruciating minute of my existence behind this dream sucking moron, an opportunity from the gods miraculously presented itself. As if he was listening to my earlier mentioned prayers. I dart for freedom under a newly opened barrier, by the time he turns around to see me and roars his disgust, it’s too late, I’m already putting my bag through the scanner.
So long sucker, I hope you choke on some of this curry flavoured dust pal.
Checking my pockets whilst walking up to the security guard, I feel something squidgy in my back pocket. Fuck. I immediately know that’s my fucking 1/8th of hash, can’t believe I forget to stuff it down my trousers in all my haste. It’s too late to throw it on the floor or turn around as the security guard already had his beady eyes locked on me. Mortified by my stupidity, I jitter forward with a little poop in my pants. He seems suspicious, I blame the panic on being late, he looks me up and down and to my suprise nods to move on. The relief is fucking immense, but suddenly the realisation that Stansted is the stupidest airport in the galaxy hits like Tyson in his prime. Commercial shops combined with fucking slow-walking imbeciles everywhere. That’s how they control the masses, fuck your capitalism. I hate you all.
Glance up at a screen and it’s 4 minutes to departure time. Put my head down and rotate my legs as fast as they can go, but my saggy jeans start to ride around my thighs restricting movement to an awkward looking limp. I’d sacrificed putting my belt back on for more running time. Another poor life gamble lost. Unrelenting, one hand clutching my waistband, one hand in my pocket to stop everything falling out, I charge like Chucky on a chase. I try to dodge a young family in the incoming traffic but my bag smashes into some poor kid’s head. He'll live. I hear some dads background abuse and if I had time I would have loved to stop to have a coffee, but nothing was going to stop me, not even this bloody stitch.
Okay, fuck, I underestimated you. Bastard stitch. Actually, have to stop and peel over, only 3 fucking gates away from the promised land. After catching my breath I muster whatever energy I have left to claw myself to the gate just as they are shutting the barrier exactly on departure time.
Aside from the extorianate price of hops, wheat and yeast, the flight encountered no major trouble. Wooooohooooooo. Whose the granddaddy of leaving things to the last minute. I must be a bloody genius.
Walking up to the immigration counter on the other side, one thing was abundantly clear. The women in this land were fucking stunning. A westernised version of beauty but nonetheless extremely attractive. Id met my fair share of Scandinavian's in East Africa to know this stereotype to be true beforehand. As was the liberal tag they had been emblazoned with, this was primarily based on the multiple women I'd seen with the local beach boys or Masais in Zanzibar. They definitely weren't in it for the money.
"Have a great day' the dark-haired lady behind the desk wished me with a smile.
​
Thank you for making it this far!

Few guys and I play a dealers choice 1-3 spread limit card game every week. When the main game is over, many times one of the guys will start dealing blackjack to us.

• Single shoe
• Surrender allowed
• Doubling allowed
• Multiple splits allowed
• BJ pays 3-2
• Dealer hits until 17 (hard or soft)
• Dealer deals until the 2nd to last card (won't play the bottom card as we don't have a card blocker
• Usually allows bets from $2-$20, most of the time everyone just bets $20. Will allow more sometimes if I ask before the deal (Permission to bet $40? Sure.)

Any specific strategy or cheat sheet I should be using for this? Anything I should specifically be counting? I could do a basic +/- count and maybe keep track of aces too.
Is this game beatable, and for how much in the long run?

Last night I hit up a friends house for steak night. We had ribeyes crumbled with blue cheese, grilled asparagus, homemade garlic bread, sautéed mushrooms and onion rings. I asked Lenny if I could bring anything and he said no, he's got it. I stopped by the packy and got him a selection of fine red wines from the clearance rack and top shelf.
We're working on an article regarding the Kyle Rittenhouse shooting and have a deadline on the horizon. I hate deadlines. So much. I let him get halfway into the bottle of wine and then turned on the tape recorder. He rants about how the government's job is to protect the government and not the citizens and all that jazz. I nod as I sip my perrier and let the ranting run. Once formatted it will evolve into a brilliant article.
His daughter is present, she's home from college early and attending virtual classes and we regale her with our wit. Our last article we collaborated on about firearms and stalking was brilliant, he tells his youngest daughter. I can't help but crack a smile and think about how if I never met Megan about how differently things would have turned out.
I was tired but I couldn't sleep so I popped a few tylenol PM and zonked out. I woke up at precisely 729AM and debated how I wanted to attack my morning.
730AM: First phone call comes in. Guy looking for 357 mag ammo. I have one box that just came in. $75. He says he'll take it. I tell him I've got some errands to do and I need to stop at Lowes and I will be in around 930AM. He says that works. He'll be there.
This day starts off promising.
8AM: Lady calls me asking if I remember her. I don't. She picked up a gun from me a few months ago and can't shoot it due to nerve damage. I tell her that it's a really bad idea financially to trade it in but she wants it gone. I tell her to stop on by after work. Her son gets back with the car at 530 so she can see me around 6PM. No problem.
9AM: I get a call from an older guy, retired and looking for AR15's. I sell him my last Anderson stripped lower for $135, which is about double what they used to sell for on my shelf. He grumbles about the price but I shrug my shoulders. Nobody has product. At about 930, guy walks in and we talk shop as he forks over an Amex Platinum for his $75 box of S&B 357 mag FMJ ammo.
10AM: Phone call. Repeat customer looking for a small under $500 pistol. I do not have much in that department but I manage to find something. He says he can be there in an hour. I get everything ready for him.
11AM: The used FN that I've had on the shelf heads out the door. I didn't make much on it, but that's one less item in inventory. Solid. Frank hands me a check and he's super happy his background check moved fast and he's able to get everything done quickly.
12PM: Guy calls me asking for 9mm. I tell him I got some. $75 a box. He says he can take two. He says he's on his way and calls me 4 times while wandering the parking lot because I'm on the phone unable to finish the call.
The call? USPS Postal Inspector, the law enforcement arm of the USPS. They're wanting answers about two firearms that I sent yesterday illegally. I roll my eyes.
Me: I went to the post office yesterday, I handed them the "I AM A LICENSEE SHIPPING A FIREARM PAPERWORK" and I said very specifically "have you seen this before?" and they said and I quote "We do these all the time"
USPS: Then why is there a problem?
Me: You tell me!
USPS: Can you tell me if they have a copy of your license?
Me: My company's license? No. They made a copy of my drivers license which I've never had happen before.
USPS: So what's the problem here?
Me: That's why I'm confused.
USPS: So you're a federal firearm licensee.
Me: Yep, my company is.
USPS: And you're sending firearms to.......
Me: Other licensees
USPS: You're allowed to do that?
Me: Well that would be what the domestic mail manual says.
USPS: These firearms are disassembled and not ready to be fired or anything are they?
Me: Uh. No. They're fully assembled.
USPS: Really?
It sorta goes on like that for another 5 minutes. I finally finish the call and get the man squared away with his 9mm. He forks over three $50's.
Lunchtime!
1PM: I duck out to run over to lowes and home depot to return/buy some home improvement stuff. I broke a light switch and a fan switch the other day. Why is it in 1966, Kelly Johnson could build an airplane that flies three times the speed of sound using a slide rule and a chalkboard and yet Home Depot can't sell me a FAN SWITCH that lasts more than 4 months? I vent my frustrations at the blue smock wearing retail employee. He nods in agreement.
Me: That's some bullshit. I'm starting my own fan switch company. With blackjack. And hookers. In fact, forget the fan switches!
Lowes: You are a true visionary sir.
Me: It's about damn time someone recognized the singularity and magnetism of my being.
Lowes: You should check out this website.
Me: Hmm?
Lowes: It's called Only Fans.
He almost got me.
2PM: I get a call from a guy selling an MG to a dealer in Pennsylvania. The dealer refuses to accept firearms from individuals. Asks me how to do it. I tell him that I'll do the transfer to the dealer on a Form 3 but it'll cost him and he is super confused by the process. He's moved here from Texas and owns a ton of MG's already and does not know what class 3 means. This will be difficult. He asks what I will charge to work all the paperwork for his deal and I tell him $350 if it takes as long as I think it will, but I'll give back $200 of it if he can wrap everything up in less than an hour. Eventually we discover that the dealer in the other state REFUSES to accept anything on anything other than a form 3 which will involve an additional wait and an additional unnecessary tax stamp. He asks if this is a good way to do it. I tell him flat out there's no good reason to do it this way and for me to take his money. If he REALLY WANTS TO DO THINGS THIS WAY, I will take his money but it's superfluous and dumb. He seems to understand.
214PM: Guy calls me back with more NFA questions. I really need to stop answering these questions for free and just saying "Is this NFA related? Because if it is you need to come in and hand me $300 for the first hour"
230PM: I stop at the deli and grab a reuben. It's warm and delicious. I bring it back to my desk.
3PM: Long at last, it's lunchtime. I wharf down my reuben and soft serve ice cream for dessert. I can feel it heading straight to my thighs. I work on the Rittenhouse writeup for a bit when the emails start coming in.
Emails! I know you all love these!
Subject: Do you buy guns?
Message:
I have a sub compact 9mm Beretta with 3 clips and 750 rounds of fmj I am selling. If you are not familiar with this sidearm it has the rotating barrel, high volume clips, ambidextrous safety's and clip release. I estimate the gun value at $600 and the ammunition value at $600 also. I'll also include the box and the silicon storage packs. Let me know what you think.
Editors note: Used Beretta PX4 storm, I'm supposed to BUY at $600 and 750 rds of unknown 9mm I'm supposed to BUY at $600? I'm happy to buy high and sell higher but this isn't what I had in mind.
Subject: gun parts
Message:
I'm a gun parts buyedealer out here in Oregon looking to buy gun parts in quantity. Rifle, shotgun, pistol, and military gun parts of many kinds, everything except the receiver portion of the firearm and no AR-15 style parts, most of my relatives like AR-15 stuff but I prefer the deer hunting Winchesters, Marlins, & Remingtons to name a few.
Kevin McAllister
(personal info redacted)
Editors Note: This was emailed to the sales department of SARCO and I was BCC'd. He's looking for low hanging fruit. Debating what/how to troll him. I have a pic from 2008 when I had 300 AR15 LPK's and I might tell him I'm liquidating them for $12.50 each but he has to pay via venmo or cashapp.
Subject: LWRC
Message: Hello Will, I’m going to order an LWRC online, from LARGE DEALER IN TEXAS HERE….ok if I use you to transfer it? Cost? Need your mailing address… Thx Dan.
Dan is a brother of a customer here in town. He's 5 states over. I can't do this for him but I check all his prices.
The numbers are good. Dealer is quoting him 8 weeks to get that rifle. I call shenanigans.
I email the LWRC rep and they get back to me. That model isn't running 8 weeks. It's running 8 months.
Subject: Stripped Lowers for sale on gunbroker (I sent this one out to another dealer)
Me: You're asking $2100 for stripped lowers? That's like even more than Obama. What am I missing here?
Dealer: Sorry, I'm out of stock on them. I can email you back when I get more in if you like?
Me: You've been selling them at $2000+ and you're sold out of them?
Dealer: Nope, I jacked the price up about $2k to deter buying until I get them back in stock
Me: Why not just end the listing and relist it when you get stock back?
Dealer: Gunbroker doesn't make it easy (it takes time) and they hit me with the $2.95 fee twice for that
wow. just wow.
I emailed a few dealers on Armslist asking for stuff. The convos went like this.
Me: Do you still have that rifle in stock?
ArmslistHomeBasedFFL: No but we got more stuff coming in daily!
Me: Such as?
ArmslistHomeBasedFFL: We don't know, they just send us stuff we don't order and we post stuff for sale when we get it.
Me: Uh. Your ad says it's in stock. Do you not take down your ads when the items sell?
ArmslistHomeBasedFFL: No of course not, if I did that I'd spend all day listing guns and then deleting them when they sell.
Me: That makes sense to you?
ArmslistHomeBasedFFL: Yeah because if you look at the bottom of the armslist post you see that I say I am sold out of the gun but I can at least try to sell you something else when I got you "on the hook" so to speak
Me: So you're not really using armslist to sell guns, you're just generating leads?
ArmslistHomeBasedFFL: I wouldn't say that.
Me: Do you have a rifle to sell me?
ArmslistHomeBasedFFL: No.
Me: Then I would say that.
I delete the email chain.
Subject: Springfield TRP
Message: Any railed or similar 1911's a little cheaper? Also interested in trades ?
FC: This is the cheapest I have. Everything else is more expensive. I trade when I can make money. What do you propose?

Sig 365xl with romeo zero & streamlight tlr6 light & laser , 2 mags, 2 holsters & night sights

FC: Alright, I can sell that. What do you propose?

I bought everything separately for it so I have right over a grand in it . The dot & light are 2 weeks old not even sighted in yet. I could do a little cash on top what's the number you have in mind ?

Editors note: 365XL plus holsters and a streamlight and he's got $1k into it. Are you shitting me?
FC: Would you make the trade for my gun and I'll kick in $100 cash?

I may be able to do that. If so where were you located again?

FC: I am in Baton Rouge. If you want to do that, I can do the trade - I'd take your stuff in first on consignment. I'd mark it at $1350 and when it sells, I'll tell you to come pick up your gun and $100 bill.

So you want to put my gun in your shop I'm guessing & wait until it sells before I get your pistol ?

FC: That's right. Like I said, I trade when I can make money - and if you wanted to be into the trade plus $100 cash that's what I would have to do to make it work. Does that sound like something that would work for you?

Im good with an even trade & once we trade it's your to do what you want.

Editors note: You would be good with an even trade.

I've been looking for a springfield champion operator & finally found one. Told the guy I have been looking for one & they are out of stock so he decided to keep it . You woukdnt happen to have one? If not I still want the trp but would rather a straight trade & be done with it if that works for you

FC: If you wanted to do an even trade, I could do that. Same terms. I have the Champion Operator. Sooner you get it over to me, sooner I can start getting it advertised.

I dont understand , if you want to sell it why do I have to put it on consignment? Once it's yours you have all the time in the world . Then I have to make another trip there instead of a one time thing like usual

FC: You want to even trade for my gun, right? I told you I trade when I can make money. You want me to put $1000 into a 365XL with holsters and two mags, I will. You get your gun when I get $1300+ out of the 365.

I guess I'm gonna have to pass it just makes it complicated . You will be making the profits off of it when you sell it so it's the same thing . It's a 2 & a half hour trip for me & I cant make that twice when its not neccessary. Unless there is something I'm missing I just don't see the point. It would be a lot easier if you just gave me what I wanted and we would be done with it.

FC: My gun should sell for $1275. Yours should sell for maybe $800. I'm not really seeing a good reason to trade unless I can get crazy money out of that gun, which I might...... You asking me to do a straight trade puts me into your gun at a very high cost that I would need to recover. How would I make it worth my time otherwise? I'm happy to hear ideas.

That's why I offered cash on top which you said would be fine if I wanted to do the consignment & the way you worded it was confusing . I can get it online brand new for around $985 . I've had the same one before but in 9mm, I dont like ordering online so would rather do a trade to save trouble & time

FC: If you can get that gun new online at that price, I would suggest you jump on that. That's below cost.

There pretty common at that price online , I've seen a few sites for $1100 & $1200 but buds guns has had them in the $900's for quite a while. Then I'd have to meet someone to sell mine then order online & wait vs meeting once & getting it. That's why I dont want to do consignment then I have to give up my EDC until you sell it . See what I mean by complicated lol

FC: Buds has them in stock at that price?

Yes . Well this was apparently a big waste of time your obviously not serious about making a deal. Have a good one

FC: If you’ve done all the research then why are you offering me a straight trade when you can obviously get it a lot cheaper? You seriously want someone to put $1k into a 365XL just because you did?

An even trade would be fair but I offered $100 extra on my side because I want the pistol. This should be very simple & straight forward but like many I've dealt with recently that is not the case . I don't know why you won't give me what's fair.

FC: I checked buds and not only do I not see the price you're telling me the gun is selling for but I don't even see it in stock. It would be more simple and straight forward if your data supported your position, but it does not. Where am I being unfair?

I've already found one for $975 brand new at a local gun shop & purchased it so thanks but you can keep it

FC: Actually, I checked gunbroker and NOBODY has TRP's in stainless except one other dealer and he wants $1600 for his. Your data does not support your argument.

Like I said just bought one for $975 plus tax came out to $1043 out the door . Gun broker is ridiculous ppl pay $1200 for a $600 glock so great if you can get that much for it I would do the same. People post on gun broker with ridiculous prices doesnt mean they get that & $1600 is absolutely insane & that buys is a complete idiot lol so I would definitely put it on gun broker if I was you might be able to retire soon lol

(ten minutes later from a different person)
Subject: Springfield TRP
Message: Do you still have it? I am ready to buy. I'm in Seattle and I have an FFL lined up.
FC: Sure do. $1600 and can ship out today.

Take American Express?

FC: Sure do!

I write it and box it. It's on the way out the door with today's USPS drop. Also outbound: $975 HK VP9 in black. $850 Glock 17 Gen 5 MOS.
4PM: I do some more customer pickups. Lady comes in with her trade in gun since her son got home from work early. I tell her the numbers and she decides to trade in her gun for some 9mm ammo. I'm into a clean barely shot M&P for three boxes of 9mm.
THREE. BOXES. OF. 9MM.
I've got $27 into this pistol. Shit. I might have to keep this one just for the story to tell my nephews.
My Puerto Rican Fire Marshal buddy calls me to shoot the shit. We rap about firefighter things.
I hear the USPS Grumman LLV drive up and I walk all my packages out to the letter carrier. I walk past my bumper and look at it closely. Someone has driven a fucking trailer hitch into my bumper and left a substantial dent. Motherfucker. Of course, no note. Goddamnit. This is why we can't have nice things.
Sigh.
I take a phone call from my buddy Kenny. Kenny has an HK I want to buy but not really. I offered him $25,000. He said he thinks he can get $43k. I tell him to go for it.
5PM: Quittin time. I get the mail on the way out the door. I may have won a prize at the local ford dealer. I head down and pick up my $5 walmart gift card and scratch off lottery ticket. I won $3.50. I ask them what used F250's they have available.
Salesman shows me a 2017 gas F250. STX, not even an XLT 4x4. It's got 40,000 miles on it.
I tell him what are we looking at out the door with tabs and everything. He says $49k on the truck which makes with dealer admin, sales tax, new tabs, registration, etc - $53k.
Me: I'm looking for a truck.
Ford: Yes?
Me: Truck. Not second mortgage with wheels.
Ford: What alternatives do you have?
Me: Excuse me.
I head to the truck, grab my saddleback briefcase and pull out my laptop and logon to the guest wifi and begin scribbling furiously on a legal pad.
After 90 seconds, my research is complete.
I show him my math.
2017 Peterbilt 389
2015 Transcraft Eagle Flatbed
CDL school
LLC filing fees
Me: I can buy your USED - GAS - four year old F250 for $53,000 or I CAN START A GODDAMNED TRUCKING COMPANY AND HAVE MONEY LEFT OVER
Ford: Sir, that's not a fair comparison.
Me: How is it not a fair comparison?
It's at that moment he regretted his up more than anyone in the building. I head to the grocery store, cash in my winning scratcher and buy groceries and go home.
Happy Tuesday everyone!