When you're in my situation, you're always applying for stuff. Jobs and welfare stuff. When you get to where I am, it's much more welfare stuff than job stuff. As I said, were I hired somewhere today, unless it paid in advance...wouldn't make much difference.

So, my purse bristles with much-Xeroxed hand-outs. Fat, stapled packets of front-and-back page lists of places, many of which sound perfect for my situation. Having made the daring, fraught decision to spend the precious six hours while the kids are in school this way (rather than writing, job-applying, or Family Court-preparing), you track down some organization that, say, provides single moms with housing. Even though the place is called Housing for Unemployed Single Moms Named Debra Who Are In Immediate Danger of Homelessness While Being Held Hostage in Family Court, say, they will be flabbergasted that you called them. 

One woman only returned my voicemail to demand to know who’d given me ‘her’ number. It was a County Office specifically charged with the housing I was looking for but she acted like a bouncer who’d found a bum panhandling in the VIP section at New York’s fanciest velvet-rope club. After I explained that ‘she’ was specifically listed on a hand-out I’d gotten from my kids’ school’s social worker, she was too offended to speak for a moment. But just a moment: talking was something, it turned out, she just loved to do. God save us all from power-tripping gummint employees. (But as I said, I’ve only been disrespected twice by such folks. Most are both humane and professional.)

Then, condescendingly and clearly enraptured with the sound of her own voice, she began to lecture me on how unbelievably wrong I’d been to have called ‘her’. She explained what they actually did – which was pretty much what I needed -- but used so much jargon, that I tried to interject with a question.

“Let me finish,” she seethed.

Oh, I realized. This isn’t about me and the kids. This is about her.

So, knowing it was pointless, I said not another word while she dazzled me with her brilliance about her own job, clearly amazed that I didn’t understand her world. While she talked, I prepared one of my trademarked, cutting ripostes. Then I thought about the guy at the gas station that morning who’d cursed out the smiling cashier for asking how his day was going. He reminded me far, far too much of myself.  I thought about how increasingly snippy I’d been with the low level service workers on the front lines of our shaky economy.  He’d made me realize that dignity, what little remains for me, must be preserved.

So I said not another word, for my dignity’s sake, but also because I was trying not to cry. No housing here.

I’d been told her organization was perfect for us, given my son’s special needs. Whether it truly was or wasn’t, I’d never get past this particular gatekeeper. I wanted to hang up. I didn’t. I wouldn’t let myself. When her ten minute, pointless lecture about why I shouldn’t have called ‘her’ ended – of course with the de rigeur list of all the other places I should call, I responded with seven words. Seven words, which I forced myself to utter with sincerity, that turned out to be perfect for such as she and all the others, however humane, who can’t help me:  “Thank you. Have a nice day. Goodbye.” And rang off.  I wrote down not a one of the numbers she’d rattled off. Why bother? Surely, I already have them and have likely already been turned down.  With more pointless lists of numbers to call.

But, first, someone has to actually answer the phone. Bless their hearts at all these overworked places in our current economic meltdown, but Lord just try to get an actual human on the phone!  If you’re lucky, you’ll eventually be able to leave a voicemail. You will also likely get to sweat bullets, while you’re going through all the menus, because one of the places you left voicemail with last week or the week before will pop up in your Call Waiting. Never fails and Oh! the dilemma of that one. If you switch over, you’ve wasted your time on this call because, when you switch back, you will have been disconnected. Answer or don’t answer the second call, they’re likely just calling to tell you they can’t help you, and wanting to know why you called them. Then, they’ll give you a long list of other phone numbers to call.

So, you decide not to switch over. You leave your voicemail, explaining your situation in all the details we poor know to provide. Then you get to spend a week or so waiting for a callback, which will come as you’re working you way down the latest list. God help you if you miss the callback, because you’ll then have to start all over again. Rarely will the voicemail tell you if you’ve been approved, or even allowed to apply.  Just that your call was returned.

But before you can even leave the all important voicemail, the one that gets you in the queue to be in the next queue to might lead to an Intake interview, you'll be pressing 4 for this and 6 for that all day long. Being down south now, at least I can amuse myself enjoying the marvelous accents on display here. I’d somehow thought TV shows and movies were exaggerating.

But back to the calls. My favorite is when you go through all the menus, find the right one, then get what I call The Okey Doke, or The Loop:  "press 4 if you'd like to remain living indoors for the next week or so, Debra." You press 4. You hear:  "Thank you for calling Housing for Unemployed Single Moms Named Debra Who are in Immediate Danger of Homelessness While Being Held Hostage in Family Court. Please listen to the following options as our menu has changed."

Now you’re in The Loop. You try to escape, but you rarely do. All the other bums have overwhelmed the lines. Pressing Other Options just leads you back to #4, the one you need. But then you just go back to the main number, never able to leave that voicemail.

All you can do is hang up, pencil them in for another time, hope the logjam of folks like you has eased when you do so, and try the next number on one of your many print outs. Because social services pretty much comes down to tired, impotent, underpaid civil servants telling folks like me to Call Someone Else. “I’m sorry we can’t help you, but have you tried X organization? Here’s their phone number. And here’s Y’s and Z’s.”

Then, having gone through the above ring-around-the-rosie, X, Y and Z just give you more phone numbers of places that can’t help you.

If one more person hands me another list, I just may scream.

Then, I’ll do as I’m told. I’ll Call Someone Else.