University breeds false sense of future career security

We can't all be heroes because someone's got to sit on the curb and clap as they go by, right?

I am sitting on the hot Rockerfeller Center subway platform, waiting for the F-train that will take me to Brooklyn, where my angelic friend Adam will meet me at the station. He will then escort me back to his apartment, feed me peanut butter sandwiches and the last of his stale Coke, allow me to chain smoke in his shoebox of a studio although he's allergic, and permit me to watch "Party of Five" even though he'd rather watch something on ESPN. The television set I snagged from Granpa's for my apartment is circa 1977 and is equipped neither for cable nor for VCR. Before Adam called and invited me over, I had just finished watching "Blossom" and "Family Matters" and was bearing down in Granpa's armchair in preparation for "Sister, Sister." The old TV's rabbit ears only pick up the WB network. I was actually looking forward to "Nick Freno, Licensed Teacher." I heard it got good reviews. The promos they aired during "Samurai Pizza Cats" at 2:30 said so.

If I seem a little discombobulated, it's because I haven't eaten today. I tried making some instant chicken noodle soup around four o'clock, but it turned out the soup wasn't the instant kind and I don't have any saucepans in the apartment because I don't want to spend the money on them. So I tried boiling water in my kettle and pouring the boiling water into a mug with a handful of non-instant soup mixed in, but the noodles never softened and the chicken cubes didn't either, so they ended up tasting like the astronaut ice cream I used to buy on field trips to museums, only chicken-flavored.

I got fired from my job, which is why I had time to watch "Samurai Pizza Cats" this afternoon. The word "fired" was never actually uttered during the meeting in which I was fired; instead, I heard phrases like "going to have to let you go," "a case of misguided initiative," "afraid things just aren't working out," "Rose is no longer with us"-heard over my shoulder as I was headed for the door carrying a few plastic shopping bags I found in the trash to transport my pencil mug, my Rolodex and my desk calendar out of the building.

Since then, I have metamorphosed into the town leper. I am surprised and dismayed at how few condolence calls I received from my former co-workers, and at how hushed and stilted and truncated those few conversations ended up being. People act like unemployment is contagious, like it's a beast that's impossible to stare down, so they'd better not look me in the eye or their jobs will vanish like the Bermuda Triangle pilots in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

I have a different emotion every five seconds. The most recurring one is that I'll never work in television again, except perhaps answering the phone at 1-800-OK-CABLE. I've been cursed with the Scarlet letter-I guess an "F" in this case-and now every prospective employer won't even wait to hear my self-made euphemisms for my lack of employment before determining that I'm a worthless smarty-pants screw-up.

Each day my resistance towards certain kinds of work withers. First I started looking outside television and towards publicity, advertising and marketing, but it turns out I'm unqualified, overqualified, underqualified, misqualified or disqualified for the positions they're looking to fill. Today I applied for three waitressing positions. Tomorrow I have to wake up early-before 2 p.m.-for a coat-checking open house at a hotel. I've sent a self-addressed stamped envelope in the mail to receive information on how I can earn extra money at home writing out mailing labels in my spare time.

I try thinking up people to blame, but none of them stick. I tried blaming my parents for raising me to be friendly-"too social" was another clause thrown around during the firing meeting-and non-confrontational-why didn't I at least try to wrangle some severance pay? I tried blaming past professors for instilling too much independence and autonomy in me. Professors assign a piece of work, then don't think twice if they hear not a peep from you until the due date. Bosses assign a piece of work, then think you're lazy or disrespectful if you don't report on the work's status at least three times before its deadline.