Universal Healthcare or Corporate Welfare?

I was 20 at the time. Two years removed from the juvinality of high school, but still had not completely adapted to life in the real world. I was rooming with several friends from high school in the smallish town of San Luis Obispo, about 10 miles from the beautiful Pacific surfline. We rented a small two bedroom townhouse a few blocks out of SLO Town's lively downtown district. Sharing rooms was never ideal, but given the high cost of living in the area, it was necessary. My roommates and myself had primarily met in music courses in high school, except for Ryan, who I met through others in band class. Ryan was one of the most gifted musicians I had ever met. He could play just about anything and made me look neolithic on the piano. Eric, also very musically talented, was always a bit of an enigma. Although a devout Mormon, he was easily the one of the most devilish guys I knew. No, he didn't slay goats and worship the Satanic Bible or anything like that... he was just very mischevious. Many of the schemes and practical jokes that went on in our townhouse were concocted out of Eric's fertile imagination. Most of the practical jokes also targeted Mike V., or Vuke as we called him. To give him credit, Vuke was a really nice guy. He was the type of guy though who's strings were wound so tight that it didn't take much to ignite his explosive temper. I remember in high school, during one of our band trips, several of our friends moved his parked car (a smallish Nissan Pulsar) up next to the band room as a prank. When our bus arrived from the out of town trip, Vuke pretty much went through the roof. He was yelling and screaming and threatening to sue whoever moved his car and supposedly broke his suspension rods. The latter accusation I always beleived to be false.. after all, this was the same Vuke that claimed to have a CB radio in his wristwatch, so he could stay in contact with the local ambulance service. The broken rods accusation was merely added for effect. Years later, we would up this prank considerably. One weekend he left to visit his family in Tehachapi. We dedided that it was high time for a nice party. Of course, we were all Christians and a bit on the nerdy side, so we really didn't party, per se. So instead, we cruised the dumpsters behind several prominant local drinking establishments and rounded up as many empty beer, wine, and hard liquor bottles as we could find. We scattered our lot around the apartment: in the kitchen, in bedrooms, in bathrooms, all over. Then we took care to make the place look as trashed as possible. Eric built a makeshift shrine of sorts, involving an old Max Headroom poster I had hanging on the wall, some candles and a marshmallow. The irony was that most of the furniture in our apartment belonged to Mike... so it was a given that the disrespect given to his belongings would definitely blow him up! As a coup de grace, we went out and bought condoms, leaving them all over the place, including a few between his ruffled bedcovers. True to form, Vuke came back from his weekend trip and immediatly got pissed. He moved out shortly thereafter, I think to leave us swimming in our pool of immaturity as he saw it. The funny thing was, he didn't realize until years later that the whole thing was staged.
So the three of us were left to go it on our own. We all attended college. Well, sort of. Some times. Eric was the most serious about school. I suppose that is why he is a lawyer now! Eric and myself worked at McDonalds part-time. Ryan ended up getting a job at a competetor, Carl's Jr. I would actually end up working at both, trying to make ends meet. $4.25 an hour did not go far, especially with part-time hours.