Worthless

Here I sit. It's been 4 months since I was laid off. After applying for numerous jobs, I haven't had a single one call me back - not a single interview. It's all starting to feel so futile.

I'm feeling pretty worthless today. Nobody wants me. Other than my wife and children - does anybody even care that I'm alive? Do they even care?

I noticed CiC's (an all-you-can-stand pizza joint) had a help wanted sign on their window - perhaps I should apply. On second thought - I make more money sitting at home on my fat butt collecting unemployment than I would working for minimum wage. Hmmm, something doesn't seem quite right about that.

Realizing that this unemployment gig might go on for a while, out of idle curiosity I checked into food stamps. Don't qualify - too much money in savings. You have to have less than $100 to your name in order to qualify for food stamps. Makes me wonder how fast they are at processing applications. If I'm down to my last $100 then I need help now! - not a month from now when they finally get around to looking at my application. And people want the government to take over health care? Frankly, I'm all for health care reform - there are some definite problems that need to be addressed. But giving the government control of it isn't the answer - they'll just screw it up to an even worse mess than it already is. This is why I've never given any credence to governmental conspiracies - I think government, in general, is just too stupid to pull it off.

Although, perhaps I'm being hypocritical as I sit here, the beneficiary of Obama's stimulus packages. He is subsidizing a major portion of my monthly health insurance - I pay less now for health insurance than I did when I was employed -for the same exact coverage. Of course, that will end in 8 months, then I'll just be screwed if I haven't found a job with benefits by then. I also took advantage of his "cash for clunkers" incentive and traded in our old van. Bought a Nissan Cube - which gets over double the gas mileage that the van got, so I qualified for the full $4,500 trade-in. But, I love my Nissan cube. It's so butt ugly it's cute. It's kinda girly, even a bit gay - just like me. And the looks people give me as I pull up next to their ginormous gas guzzling SUV are priceless.

But ... then I feel stupid for buying a new car when I'm unemployed. It just seemed like too good of a deal to pass up - and I was going to have to get another car anyway once I do find a job. The van was the type where I worried that the transmission would fall out, or something equally disastrous, whenever I drove it.

I couldn't believe it when they tried to get me to finance the car. They were actually wanting to give me a loan when I have zero income - and we wonder why we have a credit crisis in this country!

I'm taking a big math test tomorrow - to prove I am actually qualified to teach high school math. It's a requirement of the "No Child Left Behind" legislation. I'm feeling pretty good about the algebra and geometry stuff, less confident about the calculus. The part I'm worried about is trigonometry and statistics. There's just so much to remember all of the relationships between sine's, cosine's, tangents, and other trig-crap. And statistics - truthfully, I struggled in statistics in college - and it hasn't gotten any easier with age. When students take the TAKS (assessment) exams they are given a sheet with all of the formula's they might need. I'm hoping they do the same for this test - then I might be able to muddle through the trig part. But, the statistics - I'm just hoping I do well enough on the rest of the test to compensate - otherwise, I'm statistically doomed.

In any case, today is not a good day for me.