Something I noticed when I first bought this truck was that it had a special permit in it. A special permit issued by the “Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration”, authorizing it to carry…something? I’m not actually sure what this truck was used for prior to my purchase, some sort of commercial activity, and I know for a fact that it started it’s life as a simple Budget truck. Call it stubbornness or naivety, but I’m not particularly interested in finding out what it actually was carrying. I’ve lived here a month with no adverse effects, and I’ve even noted my improved sleeping abilities. Who knows, maybe my ability to sleep is from toxic fumes knocking me out every night, or maybe one morning I’ll wake up and all my hair has fallen out and I’ll have developed some new, baffling form of respiratory cancer. That would be an interesting one to explain to a doctor. Best case scenario, the truck was carrying radioactive waste and my exposure is slowly giving me super powers. Worst case scenario, the truck was carrying radioactive waste and my exposure is slowly turning me into a character from The Hills Have Eyes.

I occasionally mention how glad I am that I’m able to live the way I do, but it’s definitely not for everyone. In fact, the reason I’m able to do this is mainly because of the benefits afforded to me by the company I work at. Not that I expect many people are envious of my lifestyle, but for all those aspiring to live out of some type of vehicle, here is a list of hard requirements, collected through experience and in no particular order, that your life should possess before you consider trying to live in a box truck.

As I’ve mentioned before, I drove buses in a past life (read: two months ago). That meant that in Massachusetts, I had a Commercial Driver’s License. The bus company that I had worked for over the course of the past four years graciously trained their drivers and paid them, but in the Real World™, obtaining a CDL can be super expensive. Most driving school websites don’t list their prices, but this one has a quote of $225 for a 2-hour private lesson. Considering you need ~50 hours of instruction and driving experience to take the test (which is another $300 on that site), that puts the cost of a CDL at over $5,000. But why am I talking about the price of a CDL? Well initially, I was worried that I’d need one to drive my box truck legally, then after a bit of research in the California CDL Handbook, I found that:

Every so often, I like to apply a simple Litmus test to my life to help me figure out a couple things. The test has a single question, and the way I answer this question tells me a lot about how reasonable of a person I’m being, and if I’m living in a sustainable way. The questions is this:

If everyone acted the way I’m acting, would it still work?

Before you get too worried, the title probably isn’t what you think it is.

I’ve heard some strange sounds at night, things that sound vaguely like dirt bikes, drones, jackhammers, fireworks, people playing Pac-Man, you name it: if it’s unidentifiable and doesn’t belong in a parking lot, I’ve probably heard it from the back of this box. But there has been one sound I’ve heard on several occasions, usually in the morning on weekends, that until recently, has been totally baffling to me.