It's 3:50am somewhere...

Employment insurance, whilst seemingly fabulous in concept, is the devil.

Sure, it sounds great...get paid a somewhat fair portion of your prior wage for doing no portion whatsoever of your former work. But hear this, content laid-off workers: EI will fuck you up good.

It will begin slowly, much like any insidious pathogen. Like, why isn't it reasonable to stay up a few hours later than you normally would? It's not like you have to be anywhwere...You'll just take a few days off to enjoy a well-deserved break. Plus, late-night infomercials are pretty much the crack of the television world.

And then, well, you did stay up a bit late. That crystal rosary with the Lord's prayer built in? Riveting! For an hour! So it's perfectly logical that you would rise at 11am. Which means, of course, that it's past breakfast...but not quite lunch. The only obvious solution is to eat a little bit of both. We all know skipping breakfast leads to fornication which clearly leads straight to hell. Have the doughnut, for godssake. And maybe a glass of wine.

You've finished your doughnut (/ramen/potato chips/ice cream) and it's time for the next step of any ordinary day: shower...But all of a sudden, you hear a little voice saying "Why? why shower?" You've already established you don't really have to be anywhere, your cat is still willing to sit on your lap so your smell musn't be that offensive, and who's going to notice if you skip one shower? In fact, it's a good thing! water conservation, and all that. You're so environmental.

By this point, it's approximately 4pm, which means that the only thing on television is a re-run of Days of Our Lives. Unless you want to clip your nails or something equally as thrilling, this is what you'll be watching. After approximately one week of regular viewership, this too will be completely reasonable.

After a dinner ineveitably consisting of tuna fish, frozen dinners, and/or 17 cups of coffee, the evening awaits. And sure, by evening you mean 10pm onwards, but why not? If people weren't meant to be somewhat nocturnal, no one would know about the ShamWow! And what a sad, sad world that would be. No, seriously. It would.


Cut to nine months of unemployed life:
3:32am is an early night. And by early I mean going to sleep.

If you're up by noon, you feel an exhilerhating sense of victory. 1pm, while slightly less thrilling, is also a laudable accomplisment.

You have not eaten anything that had a mother or came from the earth for approximately 8.5 months. Also, you can open a can one-handed. Or perhaps with your teeth. You have adopted a way of par-cooking ramen noodles using only the radiation from your television screen.

Mondays are shower days. But only the ones that fall on odd-numbered days. And, of course, excluding statutory holidays.

One word: Bourbon.

You know who Sami is, who stole her baby, amd 7,000 other inexplicably brilliant soap opera plots.

You own a crystal rosary, 3 ShamWows, a George Forman grill, 5 pieces of miscellaneous gym equipment, and 7 cats.


You fail to see any need whatsoever for exercise, sunlight, or pants.

Eventually, you will die of radiation poisoning, be abducted by aliens, and/or become that news story about "person who dies in bed and wasn't found for 392 days".



the moral of the story: get a job.

Oh, and the crystal rosary? it's a total sham.