Disgusted With The Events

I got up early.

I wake and sleep at very odd hours. I woke up today at 10:00 PM. Yeah, 10:00PM. I hate it when I have the entire night ahead of me. It's somewhat depressing after awhile. Long stretches of nothing. Just inky blackness. I lay in my bed, thinking, but thoughts run wild when there is no focus. My mind is like flashes of lightning, lighting up a thin fog over grassy earth. Glowing for an instant here and there, blinking. I turn on my laptop and air conditioner to watch re-runs of Battlestar Galactica on Hulu.com. Damn, I remember this show in the Eighties and how I was so enamored with being a Colonial Warrior fighting against the Cylons. Shit, I even watched the feature length movie in theaters before it came out on television. I had a Colonial Warrior jacket, models...Hell, when I lived in California, we went to Universal Studios and I got to pose with a fucking Cylon. Now that's fandom.

Somewhere in the night, my con- sciousness unhinged and when I awoke it was morning the sun was rising. I made coffee, and cleaned up, straightened paper- work and prepped to go uptown into the Bronx for this stupid face to face re-certifcation of my benefits. I took my new book, Love In Ruins with me to kill time because I know these fuckheads will keep me waiting. I take the exasperatingly long ride up into the heart of the Bronx to the Number 35 Job Dyckman Center and show reception my paperwork. The receptionist hands me back my paperwork: "You have an NOI meeting today after your re-certification." A what? "Tell the social worker and they will explain it to you." He directs me to a waiting room and I take a seat amongst maybe twenty other people. I begin the read my book.

It wasn't until I noticed that I had traveled a long way through the book that I have been sitting for some time. I look around and nobody, except one quite young and voluptuous woman, was there when I got there. In fact I've heard every number and series called except mine which was PR3010. There were PC's called, PB's called, but no PR's. I look at my watch. I've been sitting in this stupid room for two and a half hours. Then a woman walks into the room and calls out PR 3013. A older lady stands and together they enter through a pair of class doors into cubicle hell. Hey, sometimes they skip numbers, I say to myself.

In time, the young, voluptuous woman catches the eye of a loitering young man on the other side of an unused reception desk. She goes up to him, showing him her paperwork and deep cleavage in her blouse. I notice, even from a distance, that she is among the PR series. He blushes, smiles, nods. They flirt openly for a moment or two and then he takes her paper and walks off, passing through a door, into cubicle Hell. Ten minutes later he emerges through the glass doors, points to her, then crooks his finger. She rises, and with a cheery smile, trots up to the door and they both run off into Heaven.

Another woman comes out, calling PR3017. Whoa! Wait a second here. I raise my hand catching the woman's attention. What happened to PR3010? She looks at me quizzically as another woman approaches her from the waiting room waving her paper like a winner in a lottery. "I don't know. I'll find out though." Hey, gee, thanks. She and the woman pass through the glass doors and vanish from sight. About a half hour later, she re-emerges with another woman and calls out to me: "Did you get the notice?" I frown, standing, What notice? The second woman with her, a rolly-polly number, pipes up: "Your caseworker has gone out to lunch." The first woman looks at her in alarm: "Did she know he was out here waiting for her all this time?" Rolly-polly nods, "She knows. I told her. She went to lunch anyway." I nod. Such dedication among the social workers here at...hmmm, what should I call THIS place?

I ponder the thought as I return to my book, and around another half hour, a small woman with the largest fucking ass that I have ever seen, enters into the waiting room and calls out PR3010. I rise and walk through the glass doors, following her with wide, unbelieving eyes. Her ass was bigger than her entire body. She had to walk with a twisting motion, swinging one fat leg around the other, in like an orbit. I wondered how she was going to land that freighter of an ass into a chair. It was an amazing sight. She just plopped into the chair which had no armrests, because if it did, she would have never gotten into the seat. Instead, her ass sagged around the seat of the chair like baking dough. Amazing.

"Do you have your docu- mentation," she snarls. I look at her. No. She turns to me. "You need one piece of photo ID...." I reach into the wallet around my neck and hand her my non-driver's license. "You need your Social Security card...." I hand it over. "And you need your current lease agreement." I look at her. I don't have that. "What?" She's angry again. "What is this? Your first re-certification?" No. "Then you should know that you are supposed to bring in your lease agreement to confirm your present address." I take the stack of paperwork mailed to me and flip to the page where it states PLAINLY what documentation I am to bring to the re-certification meeting. There is a list, but nothing mentioning a lease agreement. Sorry, doesn't say that here. "Like I said, you should have known this because of your previous re-certifications." Sorry ma'am, in my previous re-certs I didn't need one, and even if I did, this documentation sent to me does not state that I have to now. So unless you want to punish me for not being clairvoyant, I am not in the least responsible.

Now the bitch is fuming. She turns on her computer and takes her aggression out on the keys. We are finished in five minutes. She turns to me, "Good-day Mr. Hobobob." I hold up a finger. Excuse me, but I was told that I have some kind of NOI meeting today after this. Fat-ass looks through her computer and nods. "Yes, you have an NOI because you failed to go to your CASAC meeting on June 2nd." But I went to that meeting. "Well, you have what we call a 'Notice of Intent', which means you have until Friday to go to this conference and prove that you were at the CASAC meeting, or they will cut your benefits." That's alright, I inform her, I have already filed for a Fair Hearing. "They'll still cut your benefits after Friday if you don't attend this meeting." But the paperwork said clearly that I can either choose this meeting or a Fair Hearing. I scheduled the Fair Hearing. "Doesn't matter, they will cut your benefits after Friday."

I'm fuming now. Couldn't they put that shit in their fucking notice to me along with this idiotic Face to Face Re- certifi- cation? I left all the paperwork arguing my case concerning my attending this CASAC meeting home. I could have brought that shit in today and killed two birds with one fucking stone. Yet these dickheads keep you in the dark for as long as possible for you to chase your own fucking tail around. I get up disgustedly and walk my ass out of that dumb-assed place and hop the Way back downtown. A long, ride made shorter because of my book.

I head home, do some light food shopping. I need butter, shredded cheese and syrup. I stray home, enjoying the day, watching the New Yorkers march the streets, going their merry way here and there. I wonder what it feels like to actually go somewhere that you really want to go. It's been a long time for me. Except when I go to the movies. I forgot about that. I get home to the sounds of jackhammers and WWF wrestling over my head. I turn on my computer and the A/C and make dinner. After eating I crawl into bed, and watch television until I grow weak and my eyes close.

Tomorrow is another day in hell. I'd better rest up.

Hobobob