The Chosen One must speak on this,

If not for the situation behind the Situation, I wouldn’t be so upside-down. But when you waste half a day, waiting in line for new identification, only to get a call from your supervisor fifteen seconds before your turn is a fantastic indication of a terrible situation.

Ominous waves cascaded over me the instant I walked into the building. His office looked like something out of The Sting, with desks cobbled together with balsa and the carpets freshly stripped. It was Fannie Mae, right until the bailout check cleared. I felt like I should have brought a case of money and a safe place to stash The Goods, instead of . . . well, cupcakes, I guess. Or booze. Cupcakes and/or booze. “If you’re going to go out, go out right.”

Turns out, all the haggling and snaggling to get me into this position Right Away, was for naught: the heads of the contract, the Parent Company, had altered the Scenario. All the requirements that I had met previously were no longer the requirements, and all the skills and abilities I had honed were no longer sufficient for what could and would be considered a mindless Monkey Job.

He offered only scare eye-contact and only the barest of improvised lip service. I knew I was being lied to, at a base level. It wasn’t that I wasn’t qualified. It was that the Parent Company, the Great Contract Owners, had a straggler or two left over. And, with no place to seat them, they decided to throw me under the bus. After all, I hadn’t even been with them for two hours. Where was the harm?

So there I was, out in the cold without so much as a loincloth for protection. I should have been incensed. I would have been, too, had the same maneuver been pulled by *my* company several months earlier, for *my* benefit. But that’s what you get when you’ve situated yourself as a cog in the Military Fascist Device: In the jungle of Military Contracts, it’s every man for himself.

It's been a fancy ride up until now: Smells and sights and the occasional color. I’m unemployed now; unemployed, hopefully, for the time being. I had a job for almost two hours, if it's anything (which, incidentally, it's not). Now I have all the time to accomplish all the nothings I'd been missing these past two years.

Unfortunately, my budget no longer provides me a buffer for the slacking I'd really like to do. A long-planned Florida vacation bled me nearly-clean. Living beyond my means, assuming that I'd have the means to live when I returned, is the first and worst way to die. Nothing is guaranteed, not even a Guarantee. Mussolini taught us that, right before Patton drove into his palace, offering free colonoscopies. Sometimes you have to relearn the Hard Lessons the Hard Way, all over again.

Riding the pendulum all the way around, but, for some reason, my Spider Senses are quiet. Like none of this is happening; like I'm not even here. It's possible that the Cosmic Me knows something that I don't. It's a greater likelihood that it hasn't sunk in.

Then again, I've been nose-deep in five kinds of sugar. Baking is my Zen Garden. Nothing relaxes me like baking. Cookies. Cakes. Nuns. Politicians. If it can go in an oven, I can make it; and if I can’t make it, I can ruin it in a brilliant and unrecognizable fashion. When you’re buried inside a Box of Calm, there’re very few items than can break through. Possible eviction? Destitution? Resorting to prostitution to make ends’ meat? These are not among those. Don’t even register. Not even a dent.

The tunnel has a light at the end of it, if it’s any consolation. I’m meeting a job contact for coffee and conversation in the Too Early of tomorrow. It’s a candle, but it’s a light. All it needs is a little gasoline and a gentle breeze.

Coffee and cigarettes and mild delusions: Thursdays have a subconscious appeal in this sense. If not, well, I guess I’ll have enough time to finish those cannolis.

Thursday will tell.

The Chosen One has spoken. Heed and obey.