Pink Slip Party by Cara Lockwood

poised over them with two highlighters in each hand.
    “N-32. The next number is N-32. N as in Nancy. Thirty-two as in Thirty. Two.”
    “Bingo!” shouts the same woman.
    “Alzheimer’s patients,” Mrs. Slatter mutters under her breath.
    “Will someone get her out of here?” someone else shouts.
    This could be my future. Right here. Bingo playing. Every Wednesday.
    This thought, or the mold in the basement, I’m not sure which, causes me to sneeze. Not once, but three times in a row.
    This reminds me that should some horrible medical condition befall me — like the sudden onset of asthma — I would not be covered with health insurance. I couldn’t go to a hospital for treatment. I couldn’t even go to my primary care doctor, the one that takes four weeks to see. I couldn’t, sadly, even get to a vet’s office. I feel worse than a fugitive. I feel like a leper. No treatment anywhere, except for self-induced exile. I don’t know what happens exactly for people who don’t have health insurance, but I’m pretty sure that once the paramedics find out, they just dump your body on the side of the road. And if you manage to actually sneak into a hospital, then, in exchange for treatment, the government extracts all your eggs and fertilizes them with alien DNA like on The X-Files.
    I could, of course, apply for Cobra. But I don’t have $350 a month to spare. If I pay for Cobra, then when I’m evicted and living on the street and get sent to the emergency room for starvation and exposure, my medical expenses will be eighty percent covered. Sure, sign me up.
    “Oh-75. That’s O as in orange. And seventy-five as in Seven. Five.”
    “Bingo!” the same woman yells again.
    I decide that if I’m ever diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and want to make sure that every last minute of my life is stretched to its fullest capacity, I will come here. Two hours feels like twenty years.
    I look around at other people’s tickets. Everyone has more squares blotted out than I do.
    It’s going to be a long afternoon.
    Clearly, Bingo is not the proper gambling outlet for me. I should have tried slots, or better yet, the lottery.
    If I ever won the lottery, I’d set up a special charity fund specifically for people like me. Lazy people. People without clear career goals. I’d set them up for a year — a full year — doing absolutely nothing. I would call it “A Year of The View” or “Pop Culture Sabbatical” — something like that. The laziest person wins. No type-A personalities. No essay questions. Any hint of motivation or actual ambition would disqualify you from my fund. It would be like welfare for the uninspired.
    Ron says if he wins the lottery, he will charter a cruise ship, fill it up with his closest friends, and sail around the world for a year. It would be stocked with the best drugs money could buy. “In international waters, drug laws don’t apply,” he says. “Plus, I’d be fucking rich, so I’d hire the very best doctors to be on board in case of massive overdose.” Thank goodness Ron doesn’t actually play the lottery. I shudder to think about what a boat of 1,000 stoned and terminally high people would do for a year. Not to mention, he’d no doubt ask me to go. And if I didn’t have a job by then, I know I’d be tempted to say yes, if only for the free health-care. Then, I’d spend the next 365 days regretting my moment of weakness. It’s a lot like my whole relationship with Ron: eight months of sexual relations, a lifetime of regret.
    “Bingo!” someone yells, and I realize it’s not the demented woman, but Mrs. Slatter, who’s sitting next to me. She jumps up and pumps one wizened fist in the air. “In your face, you old biddies!” she cries. “I’m going to Vegas!” She does a little victory dance, as much as her arthritic hip will allow.
    I fail to convince Mrs. Slatter to split her winnings with me, even though I technically bought her Bingo cards. She double-bolts