1 – On My Way to Rock Bottom

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Have you ever wondered what your life could be like after you've hit your rock bottom?

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Would you try to dig your way out or get back to the surface?

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This week on Un-Fuck Your Life with Tog Chesterfield, Tog shares what happened on the way down to

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their own rock bottom.

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Welcome to Un-Fuck Your Life with Tog Chesterfield, here on 101.7 FM The Grack.

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I'm Tog Chesterfield, a recently unemployed, single, and sober 42-year-old trying to pick

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up the pieces and un-fuck my life after hitting rock bottom.

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I'm taking you along as I try new things and attempt to embrace life no matter what happens

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along the way.

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Welcome to the show.

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It's 5.01pm and I'll be here with you for your commute, or while you prepare dinner,

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or watch your kid play overtime in middle school field hockey or something.

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Your personal uninvited guest for the evening.

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So tonight, first, we need to go back to the beginning of the great fuckery of my life.

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How I got to rock bottom.

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I used to work at Apocalypse.Cloud here in Grackleton.

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You might know that Apocalypse.Cloud was not all that big and we were acquired by Hack

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to the Future.

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Hack to the Future, like future proofs phone apps and Apocalypse.Cloud, well we backed

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up apps for disaster recovery, so we were kind of a match made in heaven and also a

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prime target for acquisition.

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Anyways, I managed the social media accounts at Apocalypse.Cloud and I was laid off after

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that acquisition.

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I don't know if it was redundancies or, well, I do know why, you guys.

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It was clearly the potato incident.

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But anyways.

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So that was the beginning of my way to rock bottom.

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I didn't have a whole lot in savings after I was laid off and I had to pretty much right

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away sell my washer and dryer for mortgage payments.

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Because of that, I was walking up the street to the laundromat, Sheet Happens.

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I was walking to save some gas.

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And Sheet Happens was the only place within walking distance.

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I mean, that place, it's no secret.

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All of you probably know, there's always some broken machines, but that was the only spot

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I could walk to and even though it has a bit of a reputation, that's where I had to go.

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But as a lot of you also know, people say it's cursed.

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I'm scientific by nature, so I don't really believe in that kind of thing, but every

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time I went there, something messed up would happen.

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The first time, the screen just blinked no at me right after it locked the door.

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No!

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For some reason, there's always some choir practicing there too.

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I never knew we had so many choirs in Grackleton.

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And there's always that guy in the corner who touches my freshly folded towels after I dry

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them.

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I think it's quite rude to touch somebody's fresh folds.

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So that was the first thing.

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I also started buying most of my food from bulk bins to save money and make my own food

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at home.

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And I really like beans and assorted grains anyway, so it really works out because they

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always have a lot of that.

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I still go there actually, and if you mention my name Tog at 5, you can save 20% off your

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first purchase.

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Tell them Tog sent you.

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Actually, on that note, we'll be right back.

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Un-fuck your life with Tog Chesterfield.

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Back to the show.

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It was a good idea to go to the bulk bin store.

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They have great deals, they have nice people who work there.

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I mean, the only thing is that curb off the parking lot, I think it's about 2 inches too

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high for curbs, like above standard curb height.

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I never underestimate it right.

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I underestimate the height or I overcompensate and I do that big, you know that big drop you

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do with your foot because you don't really know how high or how low to step and you just

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get it wrong.

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Anyways, I've been trying to impress their store owner because I thought maybe they'd

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need someone to help with their social media and I really need a job.

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So I'm trying to talk to Dan Sweep at Bulk Bins about his social media strategy and we

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ended up talking about this online contest app that you can get.

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It's called Eat Your Luck.

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He was thinking of doing some promotions with them and it's not a bad idea.

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So I checked out this app and I started entering a bunch of the food contests in it.

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I was hoping to win some snacks because I could compliment all the beans and grains

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and I'm eating because of going to Bulk Bins in the first place.

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And the wild thing is I kept winning.

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But everything I won wasn't snacks.

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The contests were for the snacks but I'd always get that grand prize that wasn't a snack.

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But the grand prize was always something I didn't need.

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I got a scarecrow for the garden and since I don't have a garden it just sits on my balcony.

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I call the scarecrow Burl Booch.

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And I got this really cool dog pool with a water slide attachment but I don't have a

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dog or a yard so I donated that.

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Oh, and I got the security light.

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That's the next thing.

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The security light nearly blinded the homeowner association president, Louis Pepperoni, while

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he was walking his dog, called Pepperoni, and I had to hand write an apology letter to

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both of them.

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Dear Louis, Hi.

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I'm very sorry about installing the 10,000 lumen outdoor security lights in daylight

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white.

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Pepperoni is very cute.

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Tog Chesterfield.

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I was still fined $529 for the infraction even after that nice letter.

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So that's about when I started running low on savings for the mortgage and I realized

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that I should get a roommate.

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I cleared out my office and I moved it to the corner of my bedroom here and I set up

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the room for Lance Stick who was the roommate of the person that I sold my washer and dryer

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to actually.

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Lance was looking for a new place.

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And when Lance moved in I realized I was filling out the homeowner's association documentation

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for a new pet instead of a new tenant.

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That cost me another $347 as a subclass C infraction and this time I had to send an

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apology letter to the council secretary for having to file a second document and I spelled

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her name wrong in my email reply.

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And the worst thing of all, that's what I still can't get over.

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Her name is Emily and I spelt it Emily without even checking the email that she sent to me.

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Oh you can't see this, this is radio so I spelt it E-M-M-A-L-E-I-G-H, Emily.

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And when I told Lance, he said,

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Oh dude that's really fucked up.

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And that's when I kind of realized that I'd hit some kind of rock bottom.

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I mean who was this person Tog who has no savings, a scarecrow, and no plan for what

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to do or where to go.

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And now I'm not even proofreading my emails.

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I don't even know who I am anymore.

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Oh that's right, it's time for the weather.

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I'm driving, driving in the car.

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Tonight's weather for your drive at 5 with Unfuck Your Life with Tog Chesterfield is

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brought to you by Linda Buttertubs from Buttertub Bakery.

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Linda is renowned for her cheese danish because of the extra love she puts into the lemon

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drizzle on top.

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Buttertub Bakery, where you get drizz.

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Get ready for the weather.

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Tonight, Grackleton is experiencing an irregular pattern from the west that is going to push

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the clouds into the northern mountain range, where they are expecting 3 inches of sheet

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rain.

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This will mostly affect four farms east of the parkway.

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So if you're at those four farms, be sure to grab your umbrella.

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You just learned all about the weather.

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I'm driving, driving.

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And that's it for the weather on your drive at 5 with Unfuck Your Life with Tog Chesterfield

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brought to you by Linda from Buttertubs Bakery.

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Unfuck Your Life with Tog Chesterfield.

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Okay, back to the show.

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So I thought then and there I needed to bring fate into my own hands.

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That I was going to unfuck my life.

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I mean, I know we can't control this fate.

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That we can't control our life.

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Technically, we can't even control how our thoughts work.

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I've read up on this stuff and sometimes we don't really have a lot of control over

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them.

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But I realized that I, Tog Chesterfield, can control putting one foot in front of the other

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most of the time.

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Maybe not on that curb at Bulk Bins, but most of the time I can.

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And most of the time I can at least control most of my actions like the things I do.

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I chose to go to Sheet Happens even though it was cursed.

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I chose to buy food from Bulk Bins with an irregular curb and do the contest that led

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to Lance living in my office.

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Well, former office, now it's Lance's room.

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And then to record this radio show here in my bedroom looking out at Burl the Scarecrow.

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So I started to plan to climb out of this hole called Rock Bottom one experience at

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a time.

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Control what I can and...

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Hey, Tog.

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Oh, shoot.

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I'm sorry.

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You're recording.

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Oh, that's okay.

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Don't worry.

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What's up?

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Oh, okay.

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Yeah, I'll be really fast.

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Um, look, I was just wondering, you said to take half the fridge and I was just going

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to move my stuff in there, but, uh, I was just wondering if it's the left half, the

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right half or the top half or the bottom half that you want me to take.

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Uh, and I'm also wondering, uh, what you want me to do with all the potatoes.

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Yeah, just, uh, move the potatoes from the top two shelves.

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Um, but leave the, the left crisper drawer empty for the forks.

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Oh, great.

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Yeah.

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Cool.

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All right.

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Well, have a good recording.

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I'll just close this now.

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That's it for this episode of Un-Fuck Your Life with me, Tog Chesterfield.

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Stay tuned for Pothole Patrol on location from the streets of Grackleton at 6.

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You have been listening to Un-Fuck Your Life with Tog Chesterfield, a Stereo Forest production.

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This episode was written, directed, edited, produced, and all voices were by Jen DeHaan.

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You can find all show notes and sign up to get notified about new episodes on StereoForest.com.