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Here’s something I guess I don’t understand.

Yes...the author got dealt one heck of a bad hand. There is no question of the fact that she needed a job to continue to live.

Quite frankly, there are a lot of people out there who would bolt their job for a better opportunity...conservatives included. The Container Store would be taking no bigger risk than they would in hiring anyone else.

So, this begs the question: What SHOULD have happened? Should she just give up and not apply anywhere? Should she starve? Die? I’m confused.

Why be confused? No need for that, obviously.

This lady probably should have been exploring new self-employment possibilities, as it appears that she had already spent at least some time free-lancing in the past. Only this time, she needed to focus on providing something to the marketplace that people will actually pay for (i.e., not lectures, books, web content, etc.) Trying to sell that kind of stuff merely ends in you getting rejected by Container Store. And who needs that?

There is no question of the fact that she needed a job to continue to live.

Actually there is no evidence of that at all. She would have continued to live with or without a job, and she could have raised money or borrowed money to finance her life and the MRI test she wanted until she had other sources of income. She could have also taken a job somewhere else, which is what she actually did.

As the article stated:

For Copaken, things are looking up; she now has a job with benefits as at staff writer at Cafe.com (which she describes as “Nirvana”), and she recently sold a pilot for a television adaptation of her bestselling book "Shutterbabe."

You asked, What SHOULD have happened

What actually happened sounds like a good alternative - she got a job elsewhere, and sold some intellectual property she had.

I'm not sure why you are "confused" but it might be confusing that a highly educated and obviously skilled woman felt the need to write about her rejection for one particular job opening. I suspect the reason she wrote about it is because her job is to write and she knows that writing about her experiences - as mundane as they may be - generate income for her. Adding in details that provoke sympathy make her writing more interesting, and so that's what she does.

Maybe the hiring manager at the Container Store thought the author was just applying for the job so she would have something to write about, and so instead of hiring her he hired somebody who truly wanted to work on a long term basis at the Container Store, or somebody who needed the job more than the author did.