My caseworker (yes, now I have a caseworker) is delightful. She is personable, pleasant, well-groomed, well-spoken and competent. She is also distinctly a "she" which I find refreshing.
She deftly handles the details about the ID and answers some other questions I've developed while rifling through my papers. The literature is written in such a way that you could easily screw up filing for biweekly benefits. If your social security number ends in an odd number you can file by phone on this day and that day between this time and that time, but not on this day and that day, and never between this time and that time. And if your social security number is even it is the opposite, but no matter what your social security number, you can file on any day electronically, but only between this time and that time and never on Saturday, and the hours are different on Sunday. I am placing little reminders in my phone calendar with alarms so I don't screw it up for myself. Once you screw up, you can't unscrew the darn thing. There is no retroactive anything. You're just SOL.
This part of the process is relatively painless and my caseworker (I actually cringe when I type that word) is such a peach that she files my first claim for me online. I will be paid in 2 days! Yay me!
When the whole ordeal is over, I gather my papers and my ID and place them in my purse, and feel around for the hand sanitizer. I feel compelled to sanitize to the point of "scrubbing in" before I get back into my car with God-Only-Knows-What cooties and klingons that have found me to be an appealing host. Smelling like apricots after a rubbing some of Hil's travel sized stash all over my hands, wrists, elbows and neck, I hop into my car, relieved to find that it is neither up on blocks or stripped for parts, lock the doors and rev the engine to leave.
I bob and weave through the landmines of garbage and debris strewn along the roadways of this uncommonly run down neighborhood and head for home. I pass by my old work building and briefly scan the intersection where I'd run into Scott. No sign of him, so no guilt about blowing through the light at neck-breaking speed.
I am home in under 30 minutes. And within another 30, I get a text.
It's Scott. Wondering if I safely survived my visit to Hell Itself.
And I'm a little pissed. Running into him does not mean that the door has been flung open and we can start chit chatting again. And for the record, I worked for 3 1/2 years in Hell Itself without incident. Mama don't need no man for protection!
How dare he?
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