I found a clue

The other day, I deposited an unemployment check.
Naturally, you don't do such things with relish. Though the EDD tries nicely by giving the check a rainbow palette motif favoring greens and yellows, they can't disguise the fact that this is money you get because no one will pay you to do something.
Still, if it made sense, I'd gladly see how that motif looks when set aflame. Alas, you can't buy matches, lighters, flamethrowers or any other incendiary device without money, so you have to use the check for its intended purpose rather than the deranged purpose you may have in mind.
The act of standing at the bank with an unemployment check is also sobering when you consider that most people these days rarely go into a bank for anything other than desperate pleading with a loan manager. Direct deposit, though not without flaws, is a nice thing, and that unemployment can't be done that way is a bit of class warfare, you might say.
But even with direct deposit, I'm old enough to remember how the old way to deposit a check, and so I dutifully filled out my deposit slip, signed the check, and gave it to the Helpful Bank Person, who was cheerful considering that her daylong view is of people in Safeway checkout lines.
This transaction being completed, she looked at her screen, then told me with some relish that according to my file, "You qualify for a low-interest credit card!"
In response, my blinks of surprise could've powered a space shuttle. "Ah, no thanks," I told her. "I dunno if you noticed, but my financial situation doesn't suggest that would be a good idea."
She seemed bemused (yes, that's the right way to use that word). I continued, "Did you see the type of check I was depositing."
Then she looked at it again, and gave a chuckle. "Oh," she said. "Well, for emergencies?" she tried, though she probably knew this fish was already well beyond the general vicinity of the hook.
"No," I replied, dropping my voice an octave to convey polite disinterest, though the alternative would've been to rip up the application in her face.
And then I left. And considered: The entire situation was a metaphor for what's gone wrong.
In dire straits financially? Here's some money you'll have to pay back? Trying to do things the right way? Sucker's game!
You can't blame the teller. She's doing her job. And it's also safe to say that there are thousands, nay millions, who may have gotten credit in such situations and had no troubles.
But there are also a lot of people like me who in such situations, saw "free money" and not "ticking time bomb."
And now those bombs have gone off.