A Poorly Edited Essay About the Welfare Office
Only in America, would you find yourself in a convertible one day and the next day at the welfare office. Again. Land of Plenty, land of nothing. Land of high interest debt and unstable employment options.
I woke up thanking Roosevelt. Or was it Roosevelt. Yes, it was Roosevelt’s New Deal. I quizzed my imaginary lover between the sheets, comforter wrapped all the way around my head. My room had become such as cesspool of filth that I needed to create this teepee every night just to sleep. Every day, it was either do the laundry or get something to eat. Something to eat won every time, of course. Especially because I hated doing the laundry even when I had money.
Ok. What do you wear to the welfare office. Well, I had to somehow not “look” too white. Even though I was from what they call here “Latino Culture,” my complexion was very pale, what they call in my country more milk in the coffee, so, of course, here in America, with it’s prolific racism and non-progress in regards to racial relations, I walk into the welfare office and I’m just “white.” I mean, a lot of these people, even from my own culture, they haven’t seen someone like me in years, except on TV on commercial breaks between their favorite NON-WHITE TV show. I once had somebody who asked me if I was albino. I guess it was kind of a confused compliment, since it implied that I was not really “white,” but somehow… Nope, European. I’m the rapist and the raped all in one body. How does it feel? Well, down the bloodline something happened to someone that was pretty terrible. So, the people who killed my paternal greats were the people who raped my maternal greats or something like that. It feels like hell almost everyday, thanks welfare office for reminding me of this.
Who the hell wants to be white anymore, I mean really. Even the white kids at the coffee shop made comments about Colombus day being the day of genocide celebrated. And I had to get a spray tan to look more “Latino” for this “Latino” job-related thing I did recently. I’ve tried not saying anything about where I’m from around whites to see if I “pass,” but nope, someone immediately makes some comment about me “looking Jewish.” Is that a compliment? My response is,”No, but if I told you what I really am, you’d hate me even more.” And what am I?
A spic. A dirty old ghetto albino Spic. I mean, not albino, just of mixed race, like all dirty old ghetto spics, with more or less milk in their coffee, as the song goes. I’m kind of glad in a way that the word is out of use, but yeah, at least it was a point of reference outside of Jennifer Lopez and whatever Latino explosion thing they do every now and again. And everybody dances and asks me if I like to dance and can I show them. I really don’t like to dance. I dance terribly, especially after the accident and that drop foot.
But no, it’s time to do another thing Spics do really well. Get some gov’mnt shit for free! I take a book to the welfare office of religious tones. I don’t want to offend the people reading the Koran and the Bible, so I take the Inferno and feel in good company. I make sure that as I’m nearing the front of the line, I skip or go back to the famous phrase, “Abandon All Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.”
If you go to the welfare office, you have to get there before ten. And god forbid you have to take a shit or eat and miss your turn. The staff does not work between the hours of 11AM and 2PM, this is their lunch period, do not mess with their lunch period. If you’d rather take two shorter trips, go there after two, then go back the next morning and finish the thing, because they will not see you if you come in after two, but they will accept your paperwork. This does not apply on a Friday, because on Fridays, they do not work after three.
I kind of like how they’ve tailored their office day to make room for some perks to make up for shitty pay and an intolerable work environment of screaming babies, mumbling religious schizophrenics that can’t stop talking to themselves, people constantly smacking gum and complaining about everything. But the worst is the screaming babies. They’ve outlawed cell phones and devices, because, frankly, if you’re at the welfare showing off your tablet, maybe you still have more shit to pawn before you really need these food stamps. So stop showing off.
So where was I? Oh, yeah, Circle Six of John Ciardi’s translation, the one with the torn cover from the used book store: "At the Gate of Dis the Poets wait in dread. Virgil tries to hide his anxiety from Dante, but they both realize that without Divine Aid they will surely be lost."
