I tell them I write insurance articles. The blank stares are priceless.

Oh, and Amanda, a very good friend of mine has been unemployed twice since I started freelancing. The first time she told me that we’d have to go to lunch periodically since, you know, neither of us had a job. The second time she knew better, but only slightly.

I’m not sure why some people are so convinced that home = unemployed. And, keep in mind, this is one of my closest friends I’m talking about! So it’s not like she doesn’t know what I do!

ballywick, that’s funny! Actually, it’s irritating to you, but the stories we can tell after the fact, you know?

Katharine, that is SO funny! I had that happen recently. My car broke down. MY car. Not his. Yet the repairman talked to, and billed, him.

Oh Amanda, that’s so familiar! My friends used to call on their days off because they knew “I’d be home.” Hello! I’m WORKING! Even my mother finally got that! LOL

We call those types A-holes, Gabriella. 🙂

Amy, that’s pretty typical of what I get, too. I LOVE telling a particularly annoying person what I write. It’s as though they are too numbed by the boredom of it to find an exit. LOL

Um, thanks??? I guess only “real” writers write books.

Hubby and I were looking at houses a few years back, shortly before we bought this one, and we met with a real estate agent to look at a house he had listed. He was making nosy small talk — assessing how serious we were about buying a home, I’m sure — and he asked what I do.

“I’m a writer,” I said.

He looked at me for half a second, then turned to my husband and asked, “And what do YOU do?”

Obviously he was hoping at least one of us had a “real” income. He found Michael’s potential to be greater than mine, I guess, because he chatted with him a little and didn’t say another word to me except for “Goodbye.”

I was on the phone with him trying to get him to pay for the damage. I told him that I was confident a small claims judge would see things my way and that because I was self-employed, arranging my schedule to hang out at small claims court one morning wouldn’t be a hassle.

He continued to tell me repeatedly why I was wrong and then said, “Sure, being unemployed means it’s easier for you to go to court.”

I said: I’m self-employed, not unemployed.

What I didn’t say: You pompous arsehole!

Of course, he never paid.

“You know, you should really buckle down one of these days.”