Monetarily Challenged

Hi, my name is Paige Morrison and I am a 23 year-old recent college graduate (as I type I hear an Alcoholics Anonymous response; “Hi Paige!”). I graduated from Chapman University with a 3.0 GPA, Vice President of my sorority and with a pretty decent resume. I find myself in this recession working two days a week at a giant, cartoon shrimp-themed restaurant (our birthday song was parodied in the movie Waiting; that should tell you a lot about the kind of place it is). Sometimes I make seven dollars a shift meaning I spend more money in gas to get to and from work. I live at home with my loving, far-too-generous and still somewhat protective parents, I have a five month old Jetta that I love as much as if it were my first-born, and have a very active social life. Some may say I have it pretty great. Behind the scenes, if you dig deep into my checkbook you will find that things are quite the contrary.
I thought that by moving home I would save loads of money, buy a car and pay off my credit cards (thankfully, there are only two) and my credit score would then soar, obviously! I was so painfully wrong. After I got my car, I was no longer covered by my parents’ car insurance so I immediately had to get my own (I had an oh-so-generous 24 hour window to find the best rate. Thank you Geico). My parents gave me two of the smaller Chapman bills to pay each month (I can’t blame them, after all they have paid and will be paying Chapman till they are 85, literally, so it’s the least I can do). Then right after I moved home, I decided that it would be the Summer of Paige; I planned a few trips to places I had never been before. Because of bad hosts in New York, baseball games in DC and feeling like I deserve a lot of souvenirs in Seattle, my two measly credit cards are no longer very modest. Oh, and did I mention I have no health insurance? That dumped me two months after I walked across the stage at Chapman to accept my empty diploma holder. I mean, isn’t every college graduate supposed to immediately get a full-time, fully-benefitted grown-up job after they graduate? I must have missed something…
I have been applying for “big girl” jobs for about ten months now. Job-hunting has gotten so bad that I don’t even get an automated rejection email anymore. Have they stopped sending those? Or am I not qualified enough to get a rejection? I have resorted to working my connections via my Facebook status: “Paige Morrison is in desperate need of a job. She didn’t think her college diploma would only qualify her for serving jobs.” This was posted in hopes of some employer with a fabulous job opportunity including international travel, benefits, gorgeous men and tons of money, seeing my status and immediately offering it to me of the three hundred million Facebookers. All I got were responses from friends like, “Join the club.”
I guess my next goal in life is to become the next Carrie Bradshaw. I would have the best social life and wardrobe, sit at my window in my underwear and have a cigarette hanging out of my mouth while I write my newest column. In the meantime; if anyone has a job to offer or large sums of money to give me for my never-ending bills and terrible shopping habit, please, you know where to find me (insert winky-faced emoticon here).
Until next time...