Please don’t take this the wrong way, but if you’re a bureaucrat, I can’t stand you.

Nothing personal, mind you, but you work for a system that is designed to frustrate, aggravate, and belittle the rest of us. You are the tool of the devil.

Have you figured out yet that I had a rather nasty encounter with The State this morning? Let me give you all the sordid details:

Since neither BJ nor I was able to work for several months, we had no household income (aside from the few dollars I was bringing in here), so we applied for and were awarded food stamps. Every six months, we will be called in for a review. Our first was in late January.

At that meeting, I told the case worker that I had gotten a job teaching — but the contract would expire in May. I showed her my contract (which included my salary). She adjusted our monthly amount downward, but we still qualified. Moreover, she told me I would keep my medical card for another six months. Come back in August for another review. Fine, will do.

Then I got a letter summoning me to the office at 9:30 this morning. When I arrived, I told the receptionist that I had just gone through the review process. She made a phone call, then said this one was a medical review only. Fill out these forms (exactly the same ones they give people every time they even walk past the office door) and take a seat.

Now don’t get me wrong; I’m grateful for the help. Those food stamps were all we had for awhile. That said, though, I’ve been paying into the system all of my adult life, so I’m not at all reluctant to use the service now that I need it. I sat down and checked all the “YES” boxes, as usual.

After an hour, I went back to the window to ask why this was taking so long. I also explained that I was planning to attend a funeral, and it was due to start at 11:00. “You’re next,” she said. Then the Stupid Man came to the door.

“Tammie?”
“Right here.”

We walked through the locked door, down the twisting corridors, back toward his cubicle.

Now, before I go on, I must explain that patience has never been one of my virtues. Add to that my general reluctance to attend funerals, and my anal retentiveness about being late for anything, and you can pretty well gauge my mood.

“Why is this taking so long today? Do you people always schedule these things for everybody on the first business day of the month? What do you do for the other 30 days? And why do I have to have another review just a month after my last one?”
“What do you mean, ‘review?’ Who are you?”
“I’m Tammie. You just came to the waiting room and summoned me.”
“Let me see your letter.”

I showed it to him, and he stopped cold.

“You’re the wrong Tammie. You’ll have to go back to the waiting room. Come with me. I’m supposed to be talking to someone else.”

And with that, he took me back out to the waiting room and called back some other person who had only been waiting for about ten minutes, at which point I shoved the letter, the forms, and the voter registration card through the hole in the glass at the receptionist and stormed out of the office, steam pouring from my ears.

I’ll probably lose my medical card, but I’ll appeal that because the sane case worker approved it a month ago. And I made it to the funeral at 10:59, but only because there were no radar guns on the way to the church. I can’t stand idiots.