The Republic of California

Today was an especially harrowing day. I had to take my cat to the vet, Normally this would be an everyday check up with a yearly rabies vaccination and a nail trim. But because of the virus, this became an hour long endeavor, more akin to a drug deal than a vet visit.

I made an appointment in advance by email. At the agreed upon time, I drove to the vet and waited in the car and then phoned them. Fifteen minutes later, they came out and took the carrier.

After twenty minutes, they called to tell me how it was going. And then another twenty minutes went by and they brought my cat out and put her in the back seat of my car.

It felt like I negotiated a hostage situation.

If that weren’t enough, I also decided it would be a good idea to apply for unemployment since as a freelancer I am now out of a job. As someone who has been a full-time freelancer at various shops with little time off since November of 2018, this came as a bit of a shock.

But I want to make sure I can provide for my family, especially now since a kid is in the picture.

Getting on Cal.gov was a lot like what I remember from the stories of people who came over from Soviet Russia, and how bad it was. When I was a kid I heard first-hand about the bread lines and the endless hours and weeks and months it took to get basic things.

If California is supposed to be a progressive utopia, this surely doesn’t add up.

I spent eight hours on Cal.gov trying to apply for unemployment. There were so many millions of Californians trying to do the same that the server kept crashing. I have rage quit games that were less important than this.

I am not exaggerating when I say it took eight hours before I could finally fill out the forms. I kept wanting to rage quite the process because every other page would just quit unexpectedly. It was awful.

But around six, I finally managed to fill everything out. God knows how long I will have to wait for a phone call or to see whether I’ll be excepted or whether it’s only for “certain” Californians as opposed to all of us. But I can tell you if it’s the former, I won’t stick around long. And I know I’m not the only one.

It will be like an inverse Dust Bowl and a bunch of us will head east back to where we came from. Maybe Oklahoma will grow.

Wouldn’t that be fun.