In which I ain’t got no money.

I knew my UI benefits were about to run out so I checked my post office box once a week. But then they didn’t run out, and I got complacent and blew off getting my mail for a few weeks.

Until today, when my deposit was uncharacteristically late.

I logged into the Employment Security Department website, and lo it did say these horrible words: Your claim for the week ending on Jun 26, 2010 was processed on Jun 28, 2010. No payment was made because your benefits are exhausted, or your benefit year has expired. Your remaining balance is $0.00.

Aw, FUCK.

I found and re-read the information about EUC (emergency unemployment compensation) and discovered that I am – oh crap – not eligible for EUC because my benefits weren’t exhausted between May 22, 2010 and June 2, 2010. They ran out on June 19, 2010: seventeen days too late. I also learned that I will have to apply anyway, if they send me an application.

(Congress may extend EUC benefits, but the bill’s currently stalled in the Senate. As of May 2010, Washington state’s unemployment rate is at 9.1%. If I don’t end up getting any EUC at all, I have only 20 weeks of benefits left and no idea how to accomplish the going-back-to-school plan: it depended on receiving the EUC I was assured I would be eligible for.)

(Christ! SEVENTEEN FUCKING DAYS. If my first claim had been exhausted seventeen days earlier, I would have gotten the damn EUC.)

Anyway. I assumed that I must have been sent an application, because otherwise wouldn’t my EB (extended benefits), for which I have already applied and for which I have already been approved, be paying out?

I went to the post office and yup, I had received an application. I brought it home and filled it out. I read the small print. Guess what’s awesome [where awesome equals utter crap]? What’s awesome is that the EUC processing office doesn’t accept faxes or online applications. I have to mail my application in, and of course everything’s closed on Monday for the holiday, and they’re going to deny me anyway. Still, I have to apply, because if I don’t Washington state won’t give me my EB. Even though they’ve already approved them.

Long boring story short, my total net worth is less than $1 in change and my next paying gig isn’t until July 10th.

Oh, and without EUC I have to see if I can either 1.) borrow five grand in student loans, or 2.) bag the whole school idea altogether and bail to ANY TOWN I CAN GET A STUPID JOB IN, ANY TOWN AT ALL.

Aw, fuck.

My rent is due tomorrow. I have maybe three or four days worth of food left before I have to start stealing from G’ma. It will probably be two weeks, minimum, before I get another deposit. My cell phone service will probably be suspended in the interim. Thank God the DSL is paid up for the next three weeks, at least.

Um. Yeah. So. Remember that one time a few years ago when my marriage failed spectacularly, leaving me homeless and jobless and broke, and how much that totally sucked? Well, this is kinda like that, except that now I’m about to start mooching off my 87-year-old grandmother.

Related: ApPROVED, bitches!