A Bag For My Head, Please

As if the situation were not deeply humiliating enough, there is another twist of the knife.

The Office of the Unwashed Masses has a Board Room. And in that Board Room meets a Board. A Board of very smart folks who meets to guide and manage and hold accountable the County employees tasked with making every effort, turning every stone, finding every avenue, providing every service and type of assistance necessary to get the unemployed back to work. And each month that Board hears a detailed progress report from a rail thin chain smoker named Kathy, who brings her own lunch to the meeting and has a voice so abrasive it could remove floor wax.

And on the Board are some very experienced, gainfully employed, well informed people in lovely tailored outfits, and polished shoes, with stylish leather briefcases, who race in from other important meetings at other important places, to donate their time and expertise and often a little bit of money to ensure that every effort was indeed being competently made, that every standard was being met, that every worthwhile idea gained traction and launched successfully.

And included on that Board was Yours Truly. Yes was. Board Membership was tied to my employment at my former employer. 

And I used to come to the meetings, breeze through the lobby, a lobby filled with the Unwashed Masses, in my fabulous outfit and wearing a fresh spritz of good perfume, get buzzed past the steel doors by an armed guard without breaking stride and without making eye contact (with anyone except Rita, the armed guard with the raspy voice and the unfortunate wig, and who called me "Darlin'") and place my good bag and fabulous briefcase by a comfy chair at the highly polished table on my way to get a cup of coffee. Coffee provided by a caterer because no one would expect these people to drink the office swill.

And today, there was no tailored outfit or briefcase or perfume for me. In fact I was regretting not having traded my spiffy purse for a grocery bag (and brought an extra to throw over my head).  There was no buzzing me through the door. In fact Rita did not even recognize me. Instead, I meekly signed in on a clipboard using a filthy pen attached to the clipboard with some rubber bands, looked around at the Unwashed Masses,  and then took a seat among them on the only available groady plastic orange chair left, to wait for my name to be called.

To my everlasting horror.