Hard Truth: How $10.50, a Townhouse & a Fiero Prepared Me for Adulthood

by Derek Rodine

There was a moment in my early twenties when I genuinely believed I had crossed into adulthood. Not because I’d gained wisdom, or stability, or even a working smoke detector — but because I was making $10.50 an hour. That extra fifty cents was my emotional promotion. My internal tax bracket shift. My personal “don’t talk to me, I’m a professional now, Mom” era.

Never mind that my parents were still paying my bills. Never mind that Denver and Gothenburg, Nebraska were not even remotely on the same economic playing field in 2000. In my mind, I was thriving. I was a mogul. I was one raise away from buying namebrand cereal without checking my balance.

And, where was I living during 

this meteoric rise? A townhome in Westminster — the kind of place that teaches you lessons you don’t realize are lessons until you’re older and calmer and no longer sharing walls with strangers who own subwoofers.

My roommate at the time was a real, live Broomfield Police Officer who drove a Fiero. A Fiero. That alone should tell you everything about the era. His girlfriend — I called Gigglebox — was a permanent fixture in the living room, laughing at volumes that could be measured on the Richter scale. Between the Fierorevving, the giggling, and the shared walls, I learned one of the most important truths of my adult life:

Never live in a townhome.

But the real plot twist of that era wasn’t the Fiero or the acoustics. It was the moment I drunkenly confided in a coworker — someone I’d logged miles with, someone I trusted, someone who was both my friend and my boss — that I was preparing for a shift. A change. A truth.

She held that secret for approximately ten minutes.

Circuit City stores were all connected back then — by marriages, divorces, roommates 

and a gossip pipeline that moved faster than dialup. So when I walked into work two days later, I didn’t have to come out.

KaPOW. The entire region already knew And honestly? It wasn’t malicious. It wasn’t cruel. It was just… that era. That ecosystem. That level of entanglement where everyone knew everything about everyone, whether they wanted to or not.

Looking back now, I don’t feel anger. I feel affection for the kid who thought $10.50 meant he’d made it. The kid who trusted too easily. The kid who lived with a cop in a Fiero and a girlfriend named Gigglebox. The kid who burned Totino’s into charcoal discs and thought Renuzit could fix anything. The kid who didn’t yet understand that adulthood isn’t a number on a paycheck — it’s the distance between who you were and who you’ve become.

And if I ever did get a People cover story for that era, the headline would’ve been simple:

“My Truth: How $10.50, a Townhome, and a Fiero Prepared Me for Adulthood

ABOUT DEREK RODINE:

I sat by Derek in high school band playing the saxophone. We had some real competitions for 3rd chair. Today, his hot takes on pop culture, politics and adulting will make you laugh & think & even cry.