I went grocery shopping today. It is a bit stressful with two children in tow. There is a constant attempt to control the chaos that ensues as it always takes me longer than I expect and children have this nasty tendency to get ornery and tired.
I consider grocery shopping trips successful if I can stay within budget and somehow manage to get everything on my list. Therefore, most of my shopping trips are failures. During my pre-food stamps era, I was the total nerd dragging the calculator with me down each isle, meticulously adding my purchases and always being forced to put things back or just leave without needed ingredients because my budget was spent. Somehow, I had it reasoned out that if I didn't have the correct ingredients I would certainly be able to find something in my cupboard at home as a substitute. (This could be the reason why my cooking is not up to par. Apparently, some recipes require you to have all ingredients and substitutes do NOT work.)
Some people, like my husband, find this process enjoyable. They slowly peruse down each isle day dreaming of the fantastic concoctions they can create and even the intoxicating smells that a certain ingredient might permeate through their kitchen. This is not me. I get so stressed about how much it costs that I get gradually more and more agitated the longer I am there. Insert a fit-throwing child into the mix and it is a recipe for disaster.
Now that I have a food stamps, I am more agitated than ever. Before I even embark to the store I plan meticulously my meals for the upcoming days and write a detailed list. We just moved here -so I am not fully familiar with the locations or sales at each store location making my anxiety exponentially higher.
The minute I make that turn into the parking my heart rate inrcreases, perspiration begins and my fight-or-flight response tells me to turn around. I would love to just send my husband to the store in my behalf...but he is working so hard studying so we can someday get off of the food stamps- I cannot bear adding another burden on him. Besides, if someone happened to check who was supposed to have the card we could get in trouble because I am the one authorized to use it. My worst nightmare is being accused of fraudulently using a food stamps card...can you think of anything lower than doing that?
I find a parking spot next to a cart return (always easier with kids). At this particular store they actually have special parking for parents with small children adjacent to the handicapped parking. I feel like such a lowlife parasite in using the food stamps card I can't bear the thought of using the special parking space too. I may not have much...but I have the strength to walk myself and children the same distance everyone else does.
Before I get out I remember that the food stamps card works like a debit card and must have a pin number associated with it. I call the number on the paperwork they gave me and follow the automated instruction to set my pin. Then the female computer voice asks me if I want to know my current balance. Sure. I press one and she replies an absurd number. I wait and press one again. She says the same number again. I am baffled. I call my husband and ask him if this is right. He says he doesn't know so I call the automated service again and it repeats the same information back to me. Huh.
I've been given $685 for this month and a reimbursement of $385 for the previous month in which I applied. This is a LOT more than I normally spent on groceries AND toiletries combined and I can only spend the food stamp money on food items. I am beginning to see why people stay on public assistance.
I tear up my list and walk in the store...ready to leisurely peruse each and every isle. Wouldn't you if you suddenly had over $1,000 of someone else's money to spend? It's a strange world we live in.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
How I Got Here
You really never know how simple a time childhood is until you become an adult. You miss the carefree days of climbing trees, playing games, watching the clouds and literally taking the time to smell the roses.
My childhood was great. An American dream. My parents provided everything I needed and more. I had friends, played sports and enjoyed school. Everything seemed to come easily to me. I swam in my first race when I was 4 years old and was so proud because I beat the 5 year old in the lane next to me. Eat that sucka! I was part of the state champion gymnastics team, a competitive soccer team, member of national champion cheerleading team (rah,rah,rah), sprinter, pole vaulter, top ten in swimming and did my first triathalon the summer between my junior and senior year. Yea for me!
Good grades came easily and I scored in the top tenth percentile in all the standardized tests and was first chair saxophone in junior high band. I had boyfriends, went to every school dance and usually had a date to the neighboring high school dances too. Wow, wasn't I cool! Not really.
I was an insecure high school gal just like all of my peers. I hated the way I looked and tried to hide it with personality and an unhealthy obsession with exercising. I knew I could flirt well and used it to get attention...(I would like to make it clear that I was a very moral gal-I flirted but I didn't deliver). There were a few close friends I really let get to know me but otherwise I enjoyed having friends in the various existing cliques. Of course, there were the ones that I hated and the ones that hated me. Now that I am older I realized the stupidity of it all...but it is just a right of passage.
During my first year of high school I had an acquaintance inform me that a girl I had never talked to decided she hated me. Why she hated me?--I don't know. I, of course, had the "logical" teenager reaction and spent the following years hating her back. She committed suicide three years after we graduated. Wow. Dead. Suicide. Why did I hate her again?
Though I didn't really believe in myself, I was able to solidify religious beliefs during my high school years. I knew there was God. I knew He loved me. I knew He had a plan for my life. I knew He'd help me when He could but I had to help myself first. I still haven't quite figured out the details yet.
College was okay. After knee surgery my senior year, my physical therapist had me convinced I should be a physical therapist. It sounded good to me, so I packed my bags and planned out the four years of college followed by physical therapy school. It didn't work out that way.
I started out at a relatively prestigious private university an hour or so away from my house. I hated it. I made it one semester in the dorms and then left to move back home to my beautiful room in suburbia. I continued my education at the public University downtown. Then one night at a bonfire, I met this 21 year old, 6 foot tall, blue-eyed blonde. I lost my heart that night.
He and I spent the next two weeks being inseparable. Then I moved to Washington, D.C. for a congressional internship. I was so depressed. The boy I left at home was amazing. So...I did the best thing I could and got engaged to him on July 4th weekend, two months after we met. I was 19. (P.S. Washington was AWESOME...but more about that later)
I can affirm that getting married to this man was the single best decision I ever made. True, I was young, I was nieve, I was inexperienced, and I am now on food stamps because of him and the children we have are on government insurance, but I would still marry him all over again.
We got married four weeks after my semester in D.C., and started our life together. Education is very important to both of us so we continued school. Looking back, school had always come so easily to me I had never learned to study. I still wanted to do something in the medical field but could not figure out why I was getting my first C grades in the sciences. Instead of realizing I actually had to study, I had a professor tell me I was a great writer and should consider majoring in mass communications. So...I changed my major and took the easy way out.
During my last year of college I lined up four positive pregnancy tests on the back of the toilet, and deduced that I was probably bound for motherhood. My husband was in the police academy and we had just signed our first mortgage. It wasn't the timing we were planning on.
I tried to call my husband after I had taken the pregnancy tests, but I couldn't reach him. I had no choice to go to class and tell him later. I picked up two infant T-shirts at the university bookstore to tell him. When I arrived home I tossed the bag onto the counter and casually told him I'd bought him something. He opened the bag, saw the T-shirts and thought I had bought matching shirts for the two of us. Not exactly.
At my urging he took out the shirts and unfolded them. I could see the wheels turning in his head when he finally asked if we were pregnant. I smiled, and told him we were. He went pale, looked right at me and said,"I need to lay down."
Eventually, he recovered and our first child arrived the following summer. Just in time for me to graduate two weeks later. We spent the next few years trying to get adjusted to being a police family. It wasn't easy.
After a few years of being a cop, couples are either stronger than they were before, or they are divorced. A job like that just messes with families. We had some real tough times but came out of it like married war veterans. In the end, it is really hard to imagine putting kids through college on police salary of $43,000 a year...so my husband debated if he wanted to go back to school.
There was a lot of thought and prayer that went into the decision. We talked about me going back to work but we believe in the importance of mothers being home with their children when possible. Besides, daycare is so expensive, I wouldn't be making enough to make a difference. We decided that law school was what we should do...and here we are. In a new state, a new town, with a 3 year old, a new baby, and no money.
We are starting a new part of our lives. And I am all together happy. But I never, ever, imagined I would be driving my kids to the human services office to pick up our food stamps card while mightily praying the meth addict who was there the week before would not be there again. (No one should ever have to smell a meth addict...yuck!)
For this formerly middle-class white girl...it has been an experience.
My childhood was great. An American dream. My parents provided everything I needed and more. I had friends, played sports and enjoyed school. Everything seemed to come easily to me. I swam in my first race when I was 4 years old and was so proud because I beat the 5 year old in the lane next to me. Eat that sucka! I was part of the state champion gymnastics team, a competitive soccer team, member of national champion cheerleading team (rah,rah,rah), sprinter, pole vaulter, top ten in swimming and did my first triathalon the summer between my junior and senior year. Yea for me!
Good grades came easily and I scored in the top tenth percentile in all the standardized tests and was first chair saxophone in junior high band. I had boyfriends, went to every school dance and usually had a date to the neighboring high school dances too. Wow, wasn't I cool! Not really.
I was an insecure high school gal just like all of my peers. I hated the way I looked and tried to hide it with personality and an unhealthy obsession with exercising. I knew I could flirt well and used it to get attention...(I would like to make it clear that I was a very moral gal-I flirted but I didn't deliver). There were a few close friends I really let get to know me but otherwise I enjoyed having friends in the various existing cliques. Of course, there were the ones that I hated and the ones that hated me. Now that I am older I realized the stupidity of it all...but it is just a right of passage.
During my first year of high school I had an acquaintance inform me that a girl I had never talked to decided she hated me. Why she hated me?--I don't know. I, of course, had the "logical" teenager reaction and spent the following years hating her back. She committed suicide three years after we graduated. Wow. Dead. Suicide. Why did I hate her again?
Though I didn't really believe in myself, I was able to solidify religious beliefs during my high school years. I knew there was God. I knew He loved me. I knew He had a plan for my life. I knew He'd help me when He could but I had to help myself first. I still haven't quite figured out the details yet.
College was okay. After knee surgery my senior year, my physical therapist had me convinced I should be a physical therapist. It sounded good to me, so I packed my bags and planned out the four years of college followed by physical therapy school. It didn't work out that way.
I started out at a relatively prestigious private university an hour or so away from my house. I hated it. I made it one semester in the dorms and then left to move back home to my beautiful room in suburbia. I continued my education at the public University downtown. Then one night at a bonfire, I met this 21 year old, 6 foot tall, blue-eyed blonde. I lost my heart that night.
He and I spent the next two weeks being inseparable. Then I moved to Washington, D.C. for a congressional internship. I was so depressed. The boy I left at home was amazing. So...I did the best thing I could and got engaged to him on July 4th weekend, two months after we met. I was 19. (P.S. Washington was AWESOME...but more about that later)
I can affirm that getting married to this man was the single best decision I ever made. True, I was young, I was nieve, I was inexperienced, and I am now on food stamps because of him and the children we have are on government insurance, but I would still marry him all over again.
We got married four weeks after my semester in D.C., and started our life together. Education is very important to both of us so we continued school. Looking back, school had always come so easily to me I had never learned to study. I still wanted to do something in the medical field but could not figure out why I was getting my first C grades in the sciences. Instead of realizing I actually had to study, I had a professor tell me I was a great writer and should consider majoring in mass communications. So...I changed my major and took the easy way out.
During my last year of college I lined up four positive pregnancy tests on the back of the toilet, and deduced that I was probably bound for motherhood. My husband was in the police academy and we had just signed our first mortgage. It wasn't the timing we were planning on.
I tried to call my husband after I had taken the pregnancy tests, but I couldn't reach him. I had no choice to go to class and tell him later. I picked up two infant T-shirts at the university bookstore to tell him. When I arrived home I tossed the bag onto the counter and casually told him I'd bought him something. He opened the bag, saw the T-shirts and thought I had bought matching shirts for the two of us. Not exactly.
At my urging he took out the shirts and unfolded them. I could see the wheels turning in his head when he finally asked if we were pregnant. I smiled, and told him we were. He went pale, looked right at me and said,"I need to lay down."
Eventually, he recovered and our first child arrived the following summer. Just in time for me to graduate two weeks later. We spent the next few years trying to get adjusted to being a police family. It wasn't easy.
After a few years of being a cop, couples are either stronger than they were before, or they are divorced. A job like that just messes with families. We had some real tough times but came out of it like married war veterans. In the end, it is really hard to imagine putting kids through college on police salary of $43,000 a year...so my husband debated if he wanted to go back to school.
There was a lot of thought and prayer that went into the decision. We talked about me going back to work but we believe in the importance of mothers being home with their children when possible. Besides, daycare is so expensive, I wouldn't be making enough to make a difference. We decided that law school was what we should do...and here we are. In a new state, a new town, with a 3 year old, a new baby, and no money.
We are starting a new part of our lives. And I am all together happy. But I never, ever, imagined I would be driving my kids to the human services office to pick up our food stamps card while mightily praying the meth addict who was there the week before would not be there again. (No one should ever have to smell a meth addict...yuck!)
For this formerly middle-class white girl...it has been an experience.
Monday, September 13, 2010
This Is Me
During an introductory college course an instructor told me I should be a writer. So what did I do? I changed my major and landed myself where I am today...writing a blog in hopes I'll get enough readers to earn my way off food stamps.
I say a little prayer each time I start to write on this blog. I pray someone will find my words valuable enough I can start to provide for my 3 year old and my newborn daughter sleeping in the next room.
To some it may seem ridiculous to be calling on a higher power to help me with such a matter...but I figure whatever help I can get is surely appreciated (didn't the Israelites pray for manna from heaven? Come to me manna!)
My life is mostly good. Possibly even great. I am happily married with two young children not yet in school. Both my husband and I have college degrees and are living the American dream...or so I thought.
For the last four years I have been the wife of a police officer. This translates into no longer being myself but instead being known as the "cops wife". It also results in a jaded view of humanity. My husband spent a lot of time with the poor, the addicted, the illegal, the uneducated, and the downright lazy. He came home with bruised knuckles from being attacked by his clientèle. He saw the disability checks in the kitchens of able-bodied drug dealers and the church donated food in their cabinets. Stuff like that messes you up.
Though I did not see firsthand what my husband did, I had my own eye-opening experiences. For a time I taught the youth of low income populations at a treatment facility for criminal teenagers. Most of these kids came from Native American tribes, the black ghettos of Chicago and D.C., or white trash America. Taxpayers were footing the bill for their treatment...and too be honest, I am sure that despite my best efforts many of them were back in prison within six months of completing treatment, spending their lives supported by the American dime. What a tragedy. What parasites to be living on the government...oh wait...I'm living on the government! I am officially a parasite.
Now fast forward a few years, and you'll find me today. I am sitting in my fluffy purple robe waiting for my baby to wake while I type and pray to God that allowing the world to know of my humiliating experience will pay off. I just received my food stamps card and am living my American nightmare. This is Me…and This is My Story.
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