Please press 1 if you are currently unemployed.

Being unemployed really sucks.

Not the part, though, where you get a tidy little sum in the mail from the state while you are actually at home NOT working. A state, mind you, that is currently in the neighborhood of $11.5 BILLION in debt. Not that they can NOT afford it, as probably a good percentage of those might just hang themselves if they didn't get their handout, thus depriving the state of the taxes generated when they spend the money, not to mention the taxes that will be paid come April 15 when they have to give some back.

Not the part, either, that you aren't actually working. Work, by definition, is actual work. And who wouldn't appreciate a mid life break, after spending 21 years in the harshest possible environment? No, not the government. And no, not the sanitation department either. I'm talking about the trading floors in Chicago. Where you go in, eyes wide open to the splendor of utter capitalism, and come out a true vulgarian, looking like what comes out of a meat grinder, unable to convince the real world that you weren't WASTING YOUR FRIGGIN LIFE developing a skill which cannot be used anywhere else.

Nor the part where the kids are off to school, the wife is happily at her job, and the amplifier is turned up to 11 while you insert a solo into a Green Day song that would make Jimi Hendrix rise from the grave. Which, of course, is followed by two hours of Survivorman, who is somewhat more believable than Bear Grylls of Man vs. Wild. Although Bear tends to lean a little more towards the "disgusting" factor, I think he does this just for ratings. Not to mention the whole "fraud" conspiracy thing. Les is the kind of guy you could sit with in a bar having a beer and maybe some roasted grubs.

No, the part about being unemployed that really sucks is.....

Give me a minute. I'll think of it.