Let me give you a run-down of the last few weeks of my life. Obviously it has been a while since I put anything here, so I feel I at least owe you a few laughs.
About three weeks ago, I started feeling sick. Two days later, I was vomiting in the Emergency Waiting Room at Barnes-Jewish. After five hours, two x-rays, and a cat scan, a team of very interested doctors told me I had a punctured colon and an infection called diverticulitis, which usually only happens to late middle-aged and elderly patients. They admitted me.
“How long am I going to be here?” I asked. “I have to be somewhere on Tuesday.”
“What do you do for a living?” asked one of the doctors, with his pen and clipboard ready.
“Um. I’m unemployed.”
“Well,” he said, with a diagnostic air, “You should be able to get back to being unemployed almost right away.”
Obviously that was supposed to have been funny. Maybe if I hadn’t had a punctured, infected intestine, it would have been funny. Maybe if I had some kind of clue about how the hell I was going to pay for a hospital visit when I am uninsured and unemployed, it could potentially have been funny. Because I recognize that there are certain situations in which that could have been funny, I gave him a sympathy cackle. After all, I like to be encouraging.
“Yes, thank you, but actually I have a job interview on Tuesday and I need to make sure I am there because I can’t reschedule it.”
“Oh, well that shouldn’t be a problem. Where is the interview?”
“At a university. In Chicago.”
“Oh. Well. You may not be well enough for travel. We’ll see.”
They admitted me right away, and after a day and a half of having doctors of varying degrees of attractiveness come in every two hours and push on various places on my abdomen, they said I could leave on Monday afternoon. I told them that was nice of them, but that I couldn’t pay them. They sent a social worker to talk to me, who told me a way I could get free medication, and who explained who to contact when I received my bill so I could discuss a repayment plan. In my case, I am hoping to discuss a not repayment plan with them. We’ll see.
I was home Monday afternoon with ridiculous amounts of antibiotics and pain killers in my system. And that night Josh and I boarded a bus to Chicago. The bus was two hours late, making me two hours late for what would have been my first interview there. Luckily, I was able to reschedule with Human Resources over the phone that morning. Unluckily, I had to put Human Resources on hold to vomit and it got all over my interview slacks. I didn’t bring spares.
Nowhere in Chicago has paper towels in the bathrooms, it turns out, so I ended up using some Oxi-Clean I bought at a CVS and the hoodie I packed in case it got chilly. I was waiting for a train to take me to the university, cleaning my clothes for the interview with my other clothes. When I thought I had finished I turned to Josh and asked him how I looked. “Looks fine to me. I wouldn’t know it was there if I wasn’t already looking for it.”
I figured that was the most ringing endorsement my pants were ever going to get, so I went to the interview. As it turns out, I missed a spot. But as it also turns out, it didn’t matter whether or not I was covered in vomit because the job paid between $8 and $10,000 less per year than I was hoping. Fantastic, right?
Also fantastic: someone on the search committee saw me as The Second Gangster Kiss Me, Kate in high school. She knew the leading male, had the right year and the right show—she was definitely there. I fake tap danced onstage in my underwear. She didn’t remember me.
I had my second interview with HR that afternoon. By then I’d had another chance to clean off my pants. They’d better give me this job, I thought. After everything I have been through to make it to this fucking interview, I had better get this job.
I came home and was incapacitated for several days. There were two or three days where the furthest distance I walked was from my couch to the mailbox in the foyer. Good thing I did: I received my first hospital bill. Just for the x-rays. $600. Laughable.
On Father’s Day, my parents announced to me that they’d be selling my childhood home to move into a smaller place that costs less and is easier to keep up. Part of me was really happy for them and excited to see them start over somewhere. Another part of me was thinking, Well shit, I guess I can’t move into the basement. That evening, I calculated my net worth: -$56,000. It might have been less, except the combined balance of my checking and savings accounts were $35. The next day I received a letter telling me that the deferment on my student loans is up and that I will shortly be receiving a bill.
A week later, on Sunday morning, I got a call from the Dean who interviewed me telling me that someone else accepted the position. He thanked me for my time and encouraged me to consider other positions at the university. Yeah right. Like that will happen. Who calls you on a Sunday morning, anyway? Not that I expected to get the job: having your own dried vomit on your pants during the interview sets the bar pretty low.
After I scraped together the money to pay my bills for the month, I realized I was totally broke and that I had to come up with rent money. I called my parents for help, knowing that they wouldn’t have the money, but my Mom assured me they’d be able to put it together. I may even be able to pay it on time. “How many more weeks of unemployment do you have left?” My mom asked me on the phone.
“That’s a good question,” I told her. “I’m supposed to get 26 weeks.”
“When did you lose your job?”
“Beginning of January. Shit.” This is the 26th week.
I spent yesterday and today on the phone with the unemployment office and with the student loan people, trying to figure this out. First good news: I have about a month left of unemployment before I have to file for Federal Extended Unemployment Benefits, which will last me for 30 additional weeks. Second good news: I can continue my student loan deferment by sending in a couple of forms and signing some stuff. Bad news: my cats still don’t count as dependents.
That didn’t stop the bill from coming in the mail today: it was almost twice what it used to be. Fantastic.
So now would be a really excellent time to get a job. I mean, it would just be splendid to get an email where someone thanks me for my time AND tells me that they will pay me to work for them. Not that I don’t LOVE slowly drowning in my own debt and having to bum money from my parents for bus fare. Don’t get me wrong: that has been really great. I just think I’m ready for a day when I can shower without thinking how much each squeeze of the shampoo bottle is costing me. That would be a nice change of pace.
Hey, I just wanted you to know that there are people out here in the blogosphere pulling for you! With your wonderful sense of humor I bet you will recover and find employment in no time. You'll be in my prayers today.