they were grateful for his patronage and they thanked him very much

Once a month I have to go to the office of the ministry to pick up Little J's cheque. It's a small cheque, but worth getting nonetheless because it's hers and she's entitled to it. It's meant to offset the cost of raising her a little bit, and we use it for her singing lessons rather than for necessities, which is a nice luxury because we've already got the basics covered.

Every time I have to go to the office I feel a little stressed out. It's the same office where people pick up their welfare cheques, disability cheques, unemployment cheques, etcetera. There's no way, as you stand in line, to know who is picking up which kind of cheque, and there's part of me that wants to explain to strangers that I'm not collecting welfare. And another part of me that hates myself for feeling that way because it shows that I'm judgmental, somehow imagining that there's a difference between me and them. And doesn't the fact that we're all sitting together in the same waiting room looking the same as each other prove that there isn't a difference at all?

Except there is. There's something about that place that makes me uncomfortable in a way that I don't feel uncomfortable in the waiting room at a dentist's office or at the bank. There's the smell of stale cigarette smoke bitter and lingering on people's clothes. There's the voices, too loud. There's the way people use the word "fuck" with no emotion, because they're so fucking tired of waiting, sitting in these fucking chairs in this fucking office on this fucking Tuesday afterfuckingnoon. Maybe I'm uncomfortable because I know that no one looking sees me any differently. Or maybe because I can't quite see the difference myself.



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