Unemployment: It Does a Body Bad

Horrific Unemployment Realization #1,525: My professional, interview-worthy clothes do not fit because unemployment has made me fat.

So I've gained some weight since I lost my job, but what is most disturbing about it is that since I’ve been unemployed (going on 90 days now), I’ve been expecting to lose weight. Right after I was laid-off, I made a list of all the pros and cons of losing my job. One of the items on the pro list was that being jobless might inadvertently make me skinny (less money = less to spend on food, drinking, etc.), sort of the same way getting mono can make you skinny (although I gained weight when I had mono, so I should have known better). Needless to say, the pro side of the list was depressingly short so I had to reach a little. But now I have to remove “unintentional weight loss” from the pro side and add “unemployed weight gain” to the con side.

Since unemployment hit (sometimes I find it comforting to refer to it as a natural disaster akin to a tornado or hurricane), my wardrobe has been reduced to three or four things: pajamas, skirts with elastic waistbands, dresses without waists and pajamas with tennis shoes (i.e., workout clothes). Pro: there is no dress code for unemployment. Con: elastic waistbands nurture denial when your middle starts to get thicker.

I don’t know how much weight I’ve gained since I’ve been unemployed. I don’t own a scale because I don’t care about a number I care about feeling good. And right now I feel like a McDonald’s Big Mac—heavy, off-balance, sloppy, over-indulgent and oozing cholesterol. But when I consider the way I’ve been living the past 90 days, this makes sense—actually, it makes me feel lucky I haven’t been hospitalized.

There are things I wouldn’t do while I was employed that being unemployed has granted me the freedom to not only do, but also not care about later. For instance, I ate ten tacos in 30 minutes on Cinco de Mayo because they were .75 cents and someone bet me that I couldn’t do it. I also find myself wandering through Quick Trip, picking up a Snickers or maybe a Krispy Kreme on my way out, because apparently I think a glazed donut will fill the void of not having a job.

I have also determined that this weight gain, which I will continue to think of as a gift I don’t yet understand, is directly related to my lack of daily exercise. When I had a job, there was structure and far less time to waste, so exercise was part of a daily routine. Now I sit at my computer for ten hours everyday dressed in workout clothes (the real kind, not just pajamas plus sneakers) and when Steve gets home he says, “looks like you worked out today” and I have to say, “I didn't, but I thought about it,” which I kind of think almost counts.

While this extra weight has been a comfort to me over the past 90 days, I am physically ready to say goodbye to the Unemployed Quinn and become Employable Quinn—job or no job. I’m ready to embrace exercise and a healthier lifestyle so that I feel less like a Big Mac and more like a celery stick - yeah physical fitness! So I'll get started just as soon as I finish eating this giant chocolate chip cookie...

No, it’s MY pleasure!

The other day I went to Chick-fil-A. Even though the line for the drive-thru was as long as the Nile, I decided to join the group and wait because actually going inside to order my food would destroy my rationalization for eating Chick-fil-A in the first place. You see, going inside to order would suggest that I had the time, patience and will-power to go against convenience and therefore should be opting for a healthier meal. Also, I don’t want to be seen inside a fast-food restaurant that tries to pretend it’s not really fast food. I mean, if you have “value meals” you’re a fast-food restaurant—let’s not dance around this fact by serving only chicken with “gourmet” sauce (which they forget to give you half of the time anyway) in order to justify ridiculously high prices. It’s as if they are saying, “this ain’t no McDonalds, but, um, it kind of is because if it wasn’t, you wouldn’t eat here - now, let us bring in cows holding grammatically incorrect signs to distract you.”

I digress. Basically, I just wanted some nuggets. Chick-fil-A was sort of on my way home (I rationalized this too, by taking the long way), and thus the most convenient solution to my stomach eating itself. So, when I finally got to the speaker box with the menu to order my food I was ready, I knew what I wanted, I didn't have any questions, and so I was expecting a quick and easy transaction.

“Good evening! Welcome to Chick-fil-A! Would you like to try something from our healthy, low-fat menu today?” said an unnaturally chipper female voice from the speaker box.

Really? My rationalization got me this far, and now you’re going to use the ‘h’ word?

“No thank you,” I said.

“We have delicious fruit parfaits and fresh fruit smoothies now—”

“No, no, thanks. Can I just get…ummm…” I said, letting the ‘um’ drag on just a little too long as a punishment. “Yeah, uhhhh….I’d like some chicken nuggets, please.”

“Great! Would you like to make that a meal?”

“Ummmmmmm, yes, thanks,” I said.

“My pleasure! Would you like fries, salad, soup, coleslaw or a fruit cup with that?”

Her pleasure. Wow. Seriously? I wanted to reach through the speaker and grab this woman by the neck and tell her that this life is full of pleasures that don’t involve chicken and a drive-thru so stop acting so excited!

“Fries, well uhhhhhhhh…yeah, no, fries are good,” I said, wondering which of us was being more irritating at this point.

“And for your drink?”

“Diet Coke, please,” I said, because a fat-filled meal is not complete without a diet soda to wash it down.

“My pleasure! Okay, I have a chicken nugget meal with fries and a Diet Coke, will that be all for you today?”

I rolled my eyes at the second “my pleasure” and then recoiled, nervous that she was watching me on camera and plotting to poison my food.

“Yes, thank you—oh, wait, no, can I get some of that orange-ish, pink sauce…what’s it called? It’s like sweet and sour or something…” I said, now fully trying to antagonize her and break that annoyingly chipper disposition.

“Absolutely! A chicken nugget meal with fries and a Diet Coke and Polynesian Sauce!” she said.

“Yes, that’s it—Polynesian sauce. Thanks,” I said.

“My pleasure! That will be a billion dollars, please pull around to first window!” She didn’t really say it was a billion dollars, although that’s what I hear when the bill for one meal amounts to anything over five dollars at a fast-food restaurant.

When I get to the window a young, puberty-stricken boy handed me my order. As he ran my card, I looked for the cheerful woman taking drive-thru orders. I was hoping to find out that she was really a robot, or one of those automated voices that you get when you call your bank or try to pay your cable bill on the phone and they keep telling you to say things like ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or ‘pay bill’ but they can’t understand you because they are machines. It turned out she was a real, live person and exactly as I expected her to be: young, pink cheeks, braces and curly blonde hair that revolved around her headpiece microphone like a halo.

“Miss? Miss, your card,” Petey Puberty was holding out my card and trying to get my attention.

“Oh, right sorry, thanks,” I said.

“My pleasure!” he said.

What a ridiculous thing to force your employees to say, I thought—“my pleasure.” Maybe I was just feeling grumpy, as I tend to get when I’m hungry, and so hearing this phrase four times in a row was too much for my bad attitude to handle.

As I drove away I thought about all the reasons it was not their pleasure. It was not your pleasure because it’s my food, which I am ordering for my pleasure. It was not your pleasure because you have to wear a stupid-ass visor and a nametag that you craftily decorate with stickers (which still doesn’t make it your pleasure). It was not your pleasure because I am the one who gets to enjoy the food and you’re the one who has to prepare it. It was not your pleasure because there’s not enough pleasure to go around, so stop trying to steal my pleasure and make it your pleasure, damnit!

In an effort to reclaim ‘my pleasure’ as my own, I opened my bag of food and reached for a golden, delicious waffle fry, but then I realized that something was terribly wrong—there was something missing…

Of course. They forgot the Polynesian Sauce.