Financial constraints mean that going
into town is either a one and a half hour trip each way or a
prohibitively expensive $1 trip on the bus. That means that I spent
my first Tuesday hanging around Purgatory Shelter.
I called that janitorial job that I was
so conflicted about applying to. They said the position was filled.
When I was putting in apps later, I saw that it was up, but whatever.
I called the shipping manager job I'd
called about Friday, but no one was there and I left a message. A few
seconds later two people called the shelter back-to-back, but not for me.
One of the case workers was in and I
got hooked up with one of the computers. An older guy named Frank was
sitting next to me. He was signing up for SSI or SSDI. Whichever one
doesn't shoot down nukes but gives you money for not being able to work.
I helped him out with a thing or two, and he really caught on fast. Drugs are a common way that people end
up here, so we ended up talking about that. I mentioned that I'd had
a boyfriend who'd done marijuana and that's how I knew I was
allergic. There wasn't any awkwardness or those “I'm cool with gay
people” moments, which was a relief.
We ended up talking about why I was
here. I have a great line about egomaniacal shithead one charisma
point shy of full-blown sociopathy. He said “Yeah, me too,” and
we've kinda been friendly ever since.
Another guy, Sharon, came in and he
needed help with some IRS stuff. I couldn't help him, but he came
back a bit later for some other information and that was readily
available.
One out of two ain't bad?
No comments:
Post a Comment