Day 107
Rose has a job interview at an employment
agency this morning. Jan is celebrating by drinking. It is 10:19 AM.
Day 108
Still no unemployment
money. Since my mother is still in town,
I ask her to raid the complimentary breakfast buffet at her hotel for me. I feel minimal shame, perhaps a 3 on a 1 to
10 scale.
Day 109
My skinflint former
employer is fighting my unemployment claim.
Not sure if he genuinely believes this, or is protesting out of general
cheapness. Until this mess is sorted
out, no checks. There will be a
hearing. I am told it will take six
weeks for the unemployment people to work through the backlog of claims. I have $283 in my checking account.
Day 110
I’m going to the sperm bank to try to be a
donor. My mother is still in town. I
can’t afford to feed a meter, so I take her That’s how poor I am right now. The
sperm place is unmarked. While I’m their
another guy comes in and announces he’s Dan Clipon (Dan Clip-On? Really? Fake
name if ever I heard one). Clipon wants
to bank his sperm. I know how much
liquid nitrogen storage really costs, and man, are they getting sopped
hard. Then I masturbated into a
cup. Need $. On a related note, I applied for 8 jobs
today. Getting numb doing it over and over (applying,
not masturbating into a cup). On the way
out of the sperm bank, I asked if they were hiring. The lady in charge tells me that applying for a job
while applying to donate is a conflict of interest; I can only do one or the
other. I bet on my sperm.
Day 111
It occurs to me that every
living organism in this house may be depressed. Skylar the cat has been
sleeping in the same spot for the last six hours and Jan is snoring in the next
room. After consuming approximately
seven popsicles, Rose is starting to nod off in the living room. One of
the other cats is sleeping on her gut. I
am the sole functioning life form ‘round these parts.
It takes a real baller to get
a photo of a cat sleeping on someone’s gut:
Day 112
Rose and Jan were sitting
at the kitchen table, finishing lunch as amiably as could be expected. Rose
crinkled her nose suddenly. "Jan!" she cried, "are you...
gassy?"
"Uh... no," Jan declared finally. Jan then began to blame a nearby bucket of plants that had been removed from the aquarium the previous evening. This defense appeared to fly, until Jan farted (again, apparently). Rose tore into him with her usual ferocity. Jan decided he needed to defend himself after being busted in another obvious lie. Suddenly, he stood up, walked to the mini-fridge, and rummaged through the bottles of condiments stored there. After a moment, Jan spun on his heel and accused Rose of opening one bottle of salad dressing before finishing the old one. Rose was now angry. She promptly accused Jan of sleeping all day (true) and of being an alcoholic (debatable, but an argument could be made). Jan was completely on the defensive. He stood by the counter, casting about for a bit of reparte. "You know what you need to stop doing?" he asked, "You should stop putting silverware on this side of the counter, because they might fall into the trash."
I looked at the fork in question, sitting unmolested on the solid marble counter, and wondered how often Jan lost cutlery in the trash can. Rose failed to join the battle on this point, preferring instead to continue their exchange of completely unrelated accusations. "Jan, where the hell is that bag of pretzels you were supposed to buy me?" she fired back.
A brief concordance ensued, as they agreed to blame the disappearance of said pretzels on their youngest son. Things might have ended there, but this was only the eye of the hurricane; Rose was going for the knockout.
"You know, Jan, you might be getting a social security check. Won't it be nice to contribute to the house again?" she asked tauntingly. Turning to me, Rose proceeded to tell me a little story about her husband: apparently, in the early 1990s, Jan had been working at a place and was being considered for a promotion. "At the last moment," Rose explained, "the foreman gave Jan's job to his Mexican cousin. They paid him under the table."
"Was he legal?" I asked.
"He probably wasn’t!" Jan blurted out, possibly trying to save face. "You can see why Jan hasn't worked in the last 15 years," Rose said, with a laugh that was anything but nice.
Jan had a little postscript that made this whole affair all the more sad and comical. I didn't get all of this down, but he told another crazy story about a job with HP that concluded with him roller-skating around the parking lot of the Hewlett-Packard Building, possibly getting himself fired in the process. Oddly, Jan seemed to regard this story as somehow vindicating, allowing him to win the fight with his wife. As he was concluding the story, the dull crump of Jan’s flatulent song rang again.
A pyrrhic victory indeed.
"Uh... no," Jan declared finally. Jan then began to blame a nearby bucket of plants that had been removed from the aquarium the previous evening. This defense appeared to fly, until Jan farted (again, apparently). Rose tore into him with her usual ferocity. Jan decided he needed to defend himself after being busted in another obvious lie. Suddenly, he stood up, walked to the mini-fridge, and rummaged through the bottles of condiments stored there. After a moment, Jan spun on his heel and accused Rose of opening one bottle of salad dressing before finishing the old one. Rose was now angry. She promptly accused Jan of sleeping all day (true) and of being an alcoholic (debatable, but an argument could be made). Jan was completely on the defensive. He stood by the counter, casting about for a bit of reparte. "You know what you need to stop doing?" he asked, "You should stop putting silverware on this side of the counter, because they might fall into the trash."
I looked at the fork in question, sitting unmolested on the solid marble counter, and wondered how often Jan lost cutlery in the trash can. Rose failed to join the battle on this point, preferring instead to continue their exchange of completely unrelated accusations. "Jan, where the hell is that bag of pretzels you were supposed to buy me?" she fired back.
A brief concordance ensued, as they agreed to blame the disappearance of said pretzels on their youngest son. Things might have ended there, but this was only the eye of the hurricane; Rose was going for the knockout.
"You know, Jan, you might be getting a social security check. Won't it be nice to contribute to the house again?" she asked tauntingly. Turning to me, Rose proceeded to tell me a little story about her husband: apparently, in the early 1990s, Jan had been working at a place and was being considered for a promotion. "At the last moment," Rose explained, "the foreman gave Jan's job to his Mexican cousin. They paid him under the table."
"Was he legal?" I asked.
"He probably wasn’t!" Jan blurted out, possibly trying to save face. "You can see why Jan hasn't worked in the last 15 years," Rose said, with a laugh that was anything but nice.
Jan had a little postscript that made this whole affair all the more sad and comical. I didn't get all of this down, but he told another crazy story about a job with HP that concluded with him roller-skating around the parking lot of the Hewlett-Packard Building, possibly getting himself fired in the process. Oddly, Jan seemed to regard this story as somehow vindicating, allowing him to win the fight with his wife. As he was concluding the story, the dull crump of Jan’s flatulent song rang again.
A pyrrhic victory indeed.
Next Time: Bad news from
the sperm bank, and Jan wastes six hours on 40 cents.
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