Girl on the Brink: Surviving Desperate Times with Desperate Measures

ANN’S NOTE: Ann takes a day off on Saturday. She returns tomorrow with either Post Office Crabs, or Rose or José, which has nothing to do, unfortunately, with José, but rose, now, that is a fine drink that deserves a resurgence on a hot humid night. I work the door tonight at the Hyatt in Bethesda (right off the Bethesda Metro stop), so come on down, and you might see me perform my comedy act!

My Mom, God bless her. Always thinking of me in times of need. So it came as no surprise when I opened a card from her that contained a crisp 20-dollar bill and page ripped from the fold of Good Housekeeping magazine. It said I could work at home and earn up to $40,000 as a medical transcriptionist. She added a personalized note: “Saw this article—might be something—why not send for information.”

Mom, this article is an ad, and I’m not sending it in. I don’t want to be a medical transcriptionist and transcribe a doctor’s voice talking about other people’s diseases and disorders. And, don’t they have speech recognition software that does that? Maybe that’d be a way to game the system. Install speech recognition software on my computer, play the audio tape in front of it and let my computer do the work. The number, in case you’re interested, is (800) 475-0100.

I’d much rather fantasize about cheating on my unemployment compensation and committing health insurance fraud. I’m not talking about swindling large amounts of money like a D.C. tax clerk did from the D.C. tax office.

I also can’t believe the Internal Revenue Service would come after the little folk when there are bigger tax cheats and companies that have taken my tax dollars to bail themselves out of trouble and then paid their employees bonuses that equal more than my lifetime earnings. Their behavior, I rationalize, is more reprehensible than whatever the working class does to survive.

I know that there are all kinds of cheats in this world, and they have to live with their secret. I’m sure they’re not proud of what they’ve done. I haven’t been perfect. Someday I hope to sit in a confessional and get cleansed of my sins. Have no doubt about that.