I spent spring break here in Ames living as a homeless man.The desire to do so came after talking to a friend last semester, who said she had visited a homeless shelter and learned a lot that the stereotypes don’t tell us. I badly wanted to know for myself.

I set off from my dorm room at Towers on the Saturday immediately following the class-week. I gave myself about 75 cents and some peanut butter cracker snack-packs to open the trip with a little buffer.

The week started off with nervousness and uncertainty. Would I find somewhere to sleep? Something to eat? My only expectations were to face great challenges, body odor and physical discomfort, and for my outlook to change somehow.

I dug through and ate out of dumpsters. I collected cans and bottles to redeem, sneaked around looking for places to sleep, and bought cheap food. Finding shelter wasn’t terribly difficult, but the spots were far from glamorous. A thinly carpeted floor would have been more comfortable than each of the six places I slept. I woke up numerous times each night, and it was difficult to get more than five or six hours of sleep due to the incredibly hard, cold, and not-so-private places I found. My dreams consisted only of core survival concepts.

The main thing I learned is to be thankful for what I have and not to take things for granted. Take for example Sunday, which was an absolutely beautiful day. I worked diligently, which meant taking trash bags all over Ames collecting cans and bottles for redemption. I covered a huge area in between Towers and campus, UDA, Main Street and the rest of downtown and branched out into the neighborhood near downtown, spending a couple hours walking down alleys and growing my stash.

Nearly all of the cans and bottles still had beer or soda left inside them. They were dirty and smelled rotten, but the work was good because I knew that in the end, it would provide me with food and keep me alive. With practice, I got better at rummaging through the trash in the presence of others. After taking all the cans in, I had earned around eight dollars for my day’s worth of work. I felt like Bill Gates. That sudden accumulation of wealth led me to believe crazy things like prosperity and comfort were guaranteed.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. The very next day, Ames was hit with about a foot of snow, which virtually destroyed my ability to effectively scavenge for food and gear. By late afternoon Monday, the combination of cold, wetness, ridiculously poor sleep and malnutrition rendered me physically drained. I was walking around in a sort of stumble due purely to physical pain and exhaustion.To observers I must have been judged “just a drunk, lazy bum.” It was awful, but I reserved hope for a better tomorrow. Fortunately, it came.

However, the day solidified in me my self-image as a homeless man. Weather and scavenging had dirtied my clothing beyond the point of no return. With my disheveled appearance and (almost) broken spirit, socializing became the least of my wants.

Sometime that day, the unwritten contract between society and myself was signed: I did not exist. From then on, other homeless people actually began to acknowledge me. Whenever we crossed paths, they actually said hello. Not because it was socially expected, but because the homeless alone can recognize one another as individuals with actual names and personal circumstances.

It was such a great feeling to look someone in the eye and not feel their distrust, but acceptance. It meant the world to be treated with dignity when respect could no longer be taken for granted.

Throughout the week, I watched people eating warm, nutritious meals that I would have done almost anything for. While they ate, the people laughed and talked about this and that.

It made me miss everyone I care about, and helped me realize what truly beautiful creatures we all are. We all have hopes and dreams. Every one of us has something to worry about and bad things that have happened. Every single person has a unique history and set of circumstances.

We are so lucky. Approximately 800 million living, breathing human beings worldwide go hungry. Millions of children die every year due to hunger. They regularly go to bed without dinner — no Little Debbie snack cake, no Hy-Vee bagel, not even the last quarter bag of cheese curls from a dumpster. Nothing.

For these people, college tuition increases and monthly car insurance payments are the least of their worries. Take it from me, having temporarily removed myself from society to live life at its lowest level. I fantasized about things I used to take for granted like warm food, clean clothing and good company. In my waking dreams I imagined sitting down and filling my lonely stomach with heavenly food service among my friends.

In one of my dreams from the week I came across about $1.25 in empty cans. It was beautiful. However, the dream became a nightmare upon the realization that I couldn’t take the cans with me. I had to leave them behind and continue on. It was excruciatingly painful. When a person has nothing, a buck and change can be the difference between life and death.

We take so much for granted, both our possessions and each other. One night I was at the mall relaxing when I saw a custodian yelling at three kids. It was closing time, and the kids didn’t want to wait outside because it was cold and their ride wasn’t there yet. The man was doing his job by trying to get them to leave, but he didn’t need to be rude about it or make threats.

Early in the week I decided to work extremely hard and save up enough money to go to the dollar theatre on Wednesday night to watch “The Butterfly Effect.” In the days leading up to it, I thought about the movie as if it were a Caribbean cruise, long saved for and planned out. On Wednesday afternoon I prepared to re-enter society on my best possible appearance.

In preparation, I washed my armpits and upper body with soap from a public bathroom, leaving me with a fresh pine scent. I even washed my hair with the same soap and put on the only other shirt I wore the entire duration of the week. It was like preparing for prom.

I was all done up and ready to splurge my hard-earned money in stylish fashion. After the movie (which was good) I grabbed a half-eaten sack of popcorn and finished it off for whatever kind soul couldn’t finish it. It was unbelievably good.

From my viewpoint as an independent homeless person, with no human relationships of any kind, I saw many selfish acts and unkind words. What good did it really do? It was disappointing to see people treating each other so carelessly.

One very uncomfortable moment came when an employee of a particular spot asked in a roundabout way if I was homeless. He said he “had to ask” and explained how they sometimes get vagrants.

With a twinkle in his eye, the man smiled and gave solidarity to the non-homeless team, to which he mistakenly thought I belonged. His voice and expression was of total indifference to the suffering of those who, on that particular day, had a foot of snow dumped on them. And he was looking me right in the eye. It was a piercing moment. After an 18-hour day with snow, cold, wet feet and little hope, it was painful to talk to another human being who just didn’t care about me whatsoever.

I’ve thought about that moment a lot. Maybe he was mad at people for wanting to come in from the cold and live. Or maybe he was irritated about a homeless person taking empty cans off his lawn — who knows? He may have had a legitimate reason to distrust the homeless, but the utter indifference to their suffering (and mine, at the time) was almost too much to bear.

We’re all in this together and have got to look after one another if we’re going to make it. That means setting an example for and teaching the young to be good citizens. It means lending a hand to those in need, whether they need money or directions. We have busy lives, but helping others is an excellent use of time. Next time you find yourself in a checkout aisle and see a donation bin, know that the people on the receiving end are in a pretty bad spot. A quarter really isn’t that big a deal to us but to them, it’s a miracle.

Be thankful for what you have. At any moment you could lose it due to fire, sickness, car accident or a million other reasons. Think about those you care about and tell them how much they mean to you. You won’t always have the chance.