"I was down to my last fifty dollars" I thought to myself as I sat down in my run down, one room apartment. I sat on my shredded, disgusting couch in my foul-smelling living room with torn curtains and a dimly lit light bulb as my only light source, thinking of what to do with my last fifty dollars. "Should I spend or save it?" I thought to myself. I knew that I would regret it if I ended up spending it on something stupid again, like more lottery tickets. While I had enough money to last me for another month of mortgage, I had decided to treat myself to something for my hard work at the local two-star hamburger joint as a dishwasher, scraping gunk and other filthiness off of plates. While I had thought of going out and buying a poster in hopes making my room more decorative and to also hide the cracks on my walls, I thought that maybe instead of wasting my money on useless junk, maybe I could invest my money on something that could benefit me. "What if I invest my money into the stock market?" I thought with a bit of shimmering hope developing inside of me. It was decided. I grabbed my coat and walked out the door, and my hopes and ambitions had felt better than ever before.

I walked down the sidewalk, on my way to the bank. I walked cheerily, which put an odd look on many people's faces. "This crummy neighborhood will be the death of me." I had always thought to myself when I walked home from work every night in the cold, but with this fifty dollars I had in my pocket, I thought that my days of living in a slummy neighborhood like this were going to be a thing of the past. I realized that I might not have been the smartest person when it comes to stocks, but I knew the odds of making money from stocks was certainly going to be a lot greater than buying a lottery ticket, even though the reward might not be as tremendous. I had enough of living in my horrible apartment, and had at least wanted to pay for the damaged walls, flooring, and furniture; well everything really. I thought that maybe this could even be an opportunity for me to move out of my broken apartment and dysfunctional neighborhood. I felt ecstatic and thought this could turn my life around. I kicked myself for not thinking of this idea sooner. I felt like absolutely nothing could ruin my life at that moment.

"Give me all your money, and don't try anything funny!" Someone from behind me exclaimed in a scratchy voice. I turned around and saw that it was tall man in a dark trench coat and ski mask. His eyes fixed on me more like a cannibal than anything else. Needless to say, he looked insane. I took a step away from him. He got angry and went to reach for something in his pocket. I panicked and kneed him in the groin. As he knelt down in agonizing pain, I decided to make a run for it and not look back. I ran a couple of blocks to throw off his trail and decided to have a look back. I was relieved when I didn't see a single person in sight.

"I'm back on track" I thought to myself. "Nothing else could possibly go wrong." However, I was sadly mistaken. While I was looking back, I ran through a street without paying attention to the oncoming traffic. As soon as I heard the blaring sounds of car horns growing louder, I rushed to the other side of the street. I dived to the sidewalk and was completely out of breath. I was grateful to be alive and was about to go about my day, when I suddenly heard yelling coming from the cars behind me. A three-car collision had left me speechless; I felt ashamed for what I had done. In the aftermath of the event, I was charged for jaywalking and one of the drivers had sued me for his broken neck. All I knew was, it was going to take me a lot more than my meesily fifty bucks to get me out of this mess.