I got into nursing school, moved to a slightly larger and more metropolitan city a few hours away, and have successfully made the shift from being a broke and deeply dismayed substitute teacher to being a broke and deeply dismayed student-nurse. Admittedly, not much difference, although now I get to jab people with needles.
One thing hasn't changed: people are still horrible and beautiful and vulnerable and infuriating. There's so little I can change, but I almost always try my damnedest. And so little to admire, but I've been trying to focus on the goodness I see shining over there instead of the steaming shit I just stepped in.
Anyway.
I made the mistake today of going to both the plasma donation center (to try to sell my blood plasma for money) and the social security office (to get a replacement card). If you've never had the pleasure of visiting such fine establishments, don't. Don't ever go to either one, and especially don't go to both on the same day during a heatwave. People are insane enough without the summer sun scrambling their brains. Add to this the fact that only people in dire straights would ever be at the plasma center or the SS office, and you've got a tableau of human despair fine enough to rival a late-night trip to wal-mart.
And I hate to say it, but -- my people, my people... Is it really necessary to shriek and cackle and yell like that all the time? All the time? This is not Pookie and 'ems backyard, this is a place of business. One woman at the SS office got salty with the clerk when he asked her to repeat her social security number for verification and she started popping her neck and sucking her teeth and bellowed at him, "Fo' Two Two blah blah etc" loud enough for everyone in the waiting area to hear her. When the clerk advised her to lower her voice to protect herself from identity theft, she laughed and said that she wasn't afraid of that, since her credit was so bad and she didn't have anything worth stealing anyway.
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