A trip to the unemployment office. It's so odd how standing in a line to speak to someone can be such a demoralizing experience. I went last week to the office in Auburn to enquire about attending school in lieu of looking for work. My limited plan is to retrain as a paralegal.

The woman at the Auburn office barely glanced at me and said, "Come back next Wednesday before 9AM with the course schedules and the man will talk to you then. But come early, cause he only talks to so many people." She was ready to address the person behind me but I said, "You're saying I need to know what classes I should take before I know if I'm eligible for the program? Isn't that a waste of time?" She looked up at me and realized that not only could I speak perfect English, but that I was dressed like an office worker, not a day laborer. With effort, she found a sticky note and jotted down "9AM 4/24" and handed it to me saying that "the man" only saw folks once a week and I'd already missed the cut off for that day. Then she moved on.

This week, it wasn't possible for me to make a pre-9AM meeting in Auburn, as Phil's school starts at 8:30AM and from his school to the Auburn unemployment office is a distance of a half hour. And Phil also had a doctor's appointment at 10:30AM, which would have made me rather impatient and anxious while seeking audience with "the man."

Instead, I drove to the Tacoma unemployment office this morning to see if they have an equivalent of "the man" that I could speak with sooner than next week Wednesday. The Tacoma office is located on one of the streets that are cut into the hillside, parallel to the waterway and near unsavory (but slowly being reclaimed) areas. I parked the Eclipse and was sure I'd never see it again.

The Tacoma office is in a newish building in the middle of its block. I approached the front desk and there were only a couple of men in line before me. Looking around, I felt so out of my element. Women with toddlers clutching them. Untidy men who flipped through the career offerings without reading them. A woman with big hair and overwhelming perfume edged between me and the man in front of me, and thrust herself at the next available clerk. I couldn't even bring myself to explain that she had cut in line, as she seemed to be the matched set of the woman behind the counter and they were soon laughing in loud crow-like howls.

I wanted to be waited on by the other woman behind the counter anyway. She was smiling and cheerful in a helpful way. And when she finished with her customer, she turned to me and beckoned me forward, still smiling.

It seems to me that I have come to a sad place in my day when the smile of a worker whose job *is* to smile at the public all day can knot up my throat. Some days, I feel that everything around me is working its best advantage to make me feel small and unappreciated and exhausted and a smile from a stranger is such a lifeline. Last week when I called the Wall Street Journal to cancel my online subscription, the representative asked me (as is customary when you're calling to cancel something) why I was canceling. "I've been laid off," I said. "Oh, no!" he exclaimed, adding, "I tell you what, I'll cancel your renewal, but I'll bump out the expiration date to July, how's that?" I thanked him, hung up and started to cry.

I explained my need to the smiling clerk and she immediately dug up some forms for me to read and went over them, giving me the phone number of the two men I might need to talk with. Then she handed me another form and said, "I don't think you'll need this one; it's for low income applicants, but you might want to read it anyway."

It's nice to know in a remote way that at least I haven't gotten to where I look like I need low income assistance. Must've been the Jennifer Moore slides from my collection of footware.