Some Kind Of Mutant Blood Leech

"It's all out of context. There's nothing I'm into. Call it a complex, it's really quite simple. I'm tired of these hang ups. I wish someone would call me back. How about it?"

Long days in Orange County. The heat comes heavy and early, and even the fan can't keep me in bed once the sun comes up. Most of the time it's just about bearable, but every now and then the little things tip it over the edge of intolerable; a little extra humidity in the air, or the occasional death of the almost-constant breeze that makes going outside okay. I never understood what people meant when they described this period as the dog days of summer. Not until now.

The USCIS continues to be the villain of this lethargic pantomine. I am ready, willing, and able to work, but my details have yet to be entered into whatever system requires them so that the Social Security folks can issue me a number and make my life that much easier. At the moment, the Great Job Hunt is working around this near-crippling handicap by calling upon its protagonist's lengthy history of charm, evasiveness, and pathological lying.

The fantastic thing about the USCIS, in this instance, is this: you cannot contact them. There are no numbers to call, no addresses to write. The people processing this part of my application are, to all intents and purposes, invisible. This is beginning to bother me. I am storing up unhealthy amounts of apopleptic rage. It is giving me nervous tics. These will likely continue until some fucker finds themselves on the receiving end of my frustration.

The Great Job Hunt is, as we speak, in a state of mild anticipation. I have somehow reached deep enough into the barrel to scrape a possible job at Target off its bottom. This was the result of Jennifer's attempts to motivate me yesterday afternoon. I was feeling despondent and not a little bit annoyed, and she seized the opportunity to drag me out into the world. She was right to do so, of course, but I am weary and bored and much too hot, and every action is taken reluctantly. Target was actually yesterday's second choice, behind an opening in a sandwich shop that turned out to be run by more weird Asian people.

Maybe there's some obscure Asian nation out there that just bundled all of its mental patients onto a boat bound for the west coast of America one day. Now they sell books and sandwiches and always have job vacancies because any potential applicants run screaming from their doors.

So I filled out the super-patronising electronic application at Target, and then picked up the big red phone they keep by the computer so you can call them up and go, "Finished!" They decided they wanted to interview me immediately, and I was ordered to the Food Court to await my inquisition. There I stayed until a girl who must have been about twelve came to explain that there was nobody available to interview me. Could I come back tomorrow at nine?

Of course I could.

Cue this morning, and a bizarre allergic reaction to substances unknown that left me with an unnaturally bloated upper lip. I wasn't aware of anything more than a tingling sensation and a strange swelling when I walked into Target, but when I got home and saw myself in the mirror, I realised just what a fine job the people I had interacted with had done of concealing their utter terror at my appearing to have some kind of Mutant Blood Leech pulsating on my face.

The comedy continued when the girl at customer services called upstairs to tell my interviewer I was here. "Michael has arrived for his interview," she said, and listened to the reply before glancing back at me. "Your second name?" she asked.

"O'Mahony," I replied.

"Michael Armani," the girl told the phone.

I was once again directed to the food court, where I sat playing with my lip until a guy whose name badge announced that he was Mathew came over. "You're Michael?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Armani?"

"O'Mahony," I said, and spelled it for him.

"And your Social Security Number?"

"Uh...I don't have it with me," I said, exaggerating my accent.

"Can you remember any of the digits?"

"It starts with a five," I said. It might.

Somehow, Mathew used this information to find my application, and he returned with news. "You might want to go for a higher position," he said, and in retrospect, he may have been holding my eyes to avoid looking at The Leech. "You have, like, six years of managerial experience."

I nodded, almost smug in my confirmation of lie #1.

"And you've graduated college?"

"Yes," I said, with a modest smile, behind which lurked the savage reality of lie #2.

So somebody called Albert is supposed to be calling me at some point this afternoon, hopefully to offer me a shot at something slightly less demeaning than stacking shelves.

Fingers crossed. It may not be what I want, but it's something.