faulker009

I don’t cry much. In fact, barely at all. I can be as emotional as the next unemployed guy, but tears are not something that I usually feel. As unbelievable as it sounds, I don’t remember shedding one tear when my father died of a sudden heart attack nearly eight years ago. Please don’t misunderstand me, that was by far the worst day of my life and it took me many years to get over it, but for whatever reason, my broken heart and broken spirit didn’t include any tears. I definitely can’t explain it, but the times that I do cry usually come out of nowhere. Like last night. I have always enjoyed watching the Olympic Games. I don’t care if it is Summer or Winter, Spring or Fall would be fine too. There is something very pure and real about watching athletes you have never heard of, competing in sports that you never watch. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but when you consider the sacrifice that these amazing people have gone through for their brief moment in the spot...

During the last 13 months, I have tasted pretty much every emotion on the unemployment menu, from “who cares” to “why me” and every side dish in the middle. But only one time, has this grown man been brought to tears. After one month of unemployment, I was lucky enough to get a little part-time job for a month, so I stopped filing for unemployment. One month later, jobless again, it was time to re-file for the government’s goodies. In my state, you can pretty much do everything online, except re-open a claim. To make that happen, all you have to do is talk to an agent on the phone, they ask a couple of questions and bingo, you are back on the list. At least, it’s supposed to be that easy. As you might expect, the unemployment office is a wee-bit overloaded. In fact, if you are not one of the lucky ones to get through when the phone lines open up at 7:30am, they don’t even give you the option of waiting on hold. But they do give you a couple of very fancy recorded words of inspiratio...