And her epitaph will read "Well, that was a waste of time."

Location: My room.

Time: Four-fucking-a.m.-- The time of morning that the ass-crack of dawn isn’t even aware of. The time of morning that I’m pretty sure has its own section in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to explain the numerous ways in which it is wrong to make people be awake at. The time of morning at which I woke up to begin preparations for my first desperate attempt to get money since my poverty drove me back home last week.

The goal is to check out this temp service my mom told me about that, according to her, pays daily. As in, I work today and have money to go to the bar tonight. And she has assured me several times that it is not prostitution. Sounds like a win, right?

Right…

I pull up to the place at about ten after five-- 20 minutes early-- and sit in my car not so much drinking my coffee as happening to it. If you need a visual, watch the owl in the back corner and understand why the guy in the car next to mine wouldn't make eye contact with me.

It was when my coffee ran out that I began to have some serious doubts. For one, it's impossible to tell if the place is open or not. All the lights are on but, the building looks like I should be checking it for construction workers or hobos instead of receptionists. And, judging by all the guys idling in their cars outside of the building, I'm beginning to wonder if my mother was lying about the whole prostitution thing. But, I give both the men and the building the benefit of the doubt, and decide to stick it out until 5:30. That, and I really want beer money.

Ten minutes after the place was supposed to open, however, nobody had gotten out of any of the other four cars that were parked in front of the building. At this point I'm fairly certain that they're not there for the temp jobs and I'm in the middle of some weird parking lot meeting of an SUV gang for middle-aged men or the rendezvous point for some early-morning gay sex hookup.

So, I do the only sensible thing. I get out of the car to go and actually check the door. Maybe someone had come in when I was inhaling my coffee. Or maybe they were there from the start and I just didn't see them in that barren crater that was the office. And, on the bright side, if these guys aren't here for the temp jobs, then I'm the only candidate and they have to pay me! Victory!

I get about halfway to the building when I hear three car doors shut behind me, and all I can think is:

Oh shit, I'm about to become the basis for a new Lifetime movie.

Right about then, one of the guys yells "It's not open yet. The girl's late." The speaker, a creature I have fondly named Ewgoddamnit, is a short, unhealthy-looking man with sunken eyes and pit stains that I could see clearly from 6 feet away in the dark. The creature approaches, apparently encouraged by the fact that I turned to look at it. "What's your name?"

It was here that I made my first mistake.

"Danielle."

"That a beautiful name. You's really beautiful, Danielle."

"Okay."

"You got a boy--"

"No."

"Can I get your---"

"No."

"What?"

"No."

The conversation is mercifully cut short when the woman with the keys to the building finally decides to show up and do her goddamn job, although she doesn't look thrilled about it. In all honesty, she looks like she spoke to Maury in the car and he told her that her husband was running away to South Africa to elope with her uncle-- and the son of a bitch took the dog, too.

She leads us in to the desolate room and heads behind the desk where she unpacks her purse and immediately starts making phone calls. I, who would like to know where to place my resume, or fill out an application or, at the very least, find out which rickety truck I should hop into to take me to pick the goddamn cherries in the back 40-- or whatever the shit it is they do here-- wait patiently by the desk for her to finish her call. When she's done, I ask "Excuse me, but do you need my resume, or should I fill out an application? This is my first time here."

She gives me the look she'd like to give her uncle, if he wasn't on a plane to South Africa to elope with her husband. And the dog. "Go sit down and I'll call you up when it's time."

Thoroughly chastised, I pull one of the white-ish plastic lawn chairs out of the pile and have a seat. Eventually, I'm called up-- along with four other men-- and she issues instructions in the uninterested fashion of the guy in charge of delousing in old prison movies. "License and social security cards."

And here's where I realize, as I do every day, that I am a complete moron.

Unfortunately, I’ve been cycling through campus jobs for so long that I forgot that real jobs need real documents to legally pay you. Real documents like the ones sitting in my desk in Lansing, waiting for me to acquire a truck and manly friends to help me move it and the rest of my furniture to the place where myself, my clothing and my booze already are.

Fuck.

So, this is where the adventure ends. I drive away with enough caffeine in my system to drive half a dozen elephants into half a dozen new and exciting states of cardiac arrest and enough fury to kill the stragglers of the herd with my teeth. I also drive away with an empty gas tank.

So, I stop to fill my tank on the way back. I don’t know whether to laugh or fling myself into traffic when I see the gas card my mom got me last night.

Printed across the front in bright, cheerful letters is the word “Congratulations!”