Not Even Your Money

It started out as a high school job to make some extra money for Tangzine editor Matthew Ralph in the mid-'90s, but quickly became fodder for a popular column in the New Jersey-based independent magazine. Bomb scares, strippers, thugs, car lovers, hold-ups, lottery suckers-you name it, Ralph experienced it, jotting each experience down for posterity. Here, for the first time in one place, Ralph pieces together the old stories from the column, works in assorted experiences from a similar job experience in college and brings us 24 stories inspired by odd characters, strange circumstances, and the striking recollections of eight months spent in a Southern New Jersey convenience store.

Matthew Ralph is a staff writer for the Bridgeton-Millville News in Bridgeton, New Jersey and is the editor of Tangzine.com . He has lived or spent extended periods in Kansas, Oklahoma, Ohio, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Chicago and London and holds a degree in English from Lebanon Valley College.