… so there’s been a pretty heated conversation going on between Jen512 and my buddy The Goober about healthcare. If you’re up for it, you can read it HERE.
I was going to post my episode recaps for Project Runway and Top Chef but I think this topic is a little more important.
NOTE: Just let me set the records straight before I go on my tirade. I am not a liberal.. conservative.. Democrat.. Republican.. a sheep.. or a lion. I am just someone who tries to live right.. tries to provide for my family and loves my country. I don’t trust politicians OR the judicial system for that matter so please don’t think that I have a hidden agenda or am just spewing what I hear from someone else. I keep an open mind about everything and am the first one to google something I don’t understand before I form an opinion about it.
With that said…
Before I met Chief, I had very little :: okay, NONE :: experience with my state’s welfare system. I grew up in I guess you could say a lower-middle class :: or high lower class :: neighborhood where no one really knew they didn’t have anything because we had what we needed :: food on the table, roof over our heads, etc. :: and everyone was basically in the same position that my family was.
We went to Catholic school, went to college and then went to work. We got married.. bought cars and houses and didn’t have any of the drama that you routinely hear about on the news on in the paper.
When I met Chief, he was a working as a chef for a ridiculously high end caterer :: they wouldn’t do a wedding unless the price tag was a minimum of 50 grand :: but was making half of what I was making an hour. In fact, he was making less then an entry level position for the company that I worked for. He was trying to raise 3 kids without any type of child support because all the judges he and the crack whore went before fell for her sob stories.
According to assistance limits, he was making too much money to get on any type of program that would help with electricity bills or heating bills but was able to get about 180.00 a month in food stamps.
That’s basically 6 bucks a day.
Which the state immediately cut off when he went on unemployment.
NOTE: There is a “down” time in catering and generally you work 8 months and then are laid off for 4 months. Carpenters go through the same thing.
If you think it was hard financially when he was working, imagine how hard it was when he was on unemployment. It was that reason why he decided to open up the store. The way we figured it on paper, my paycheck would be able to handle all the household stuff while his unemployment would go towards opening the store.. and then the store would be able to pay for itself.
He was smart.. and it worked. It was hard.. it was :: and still is :: 20 hour days and a lot of sacrificing and a lot of worry and a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
I’m not complaining. It’s just how it is. We chose to open a store.. we knew it was going to take a lot of inner strength.. outer elbow grease.. and a lot of praying.
To say we work hard is an understatement. You can ask any one of customers and they will tell you that we do the very best that we can to give our customers things that they want that they can afford.
But what torques the hell out of my Chinese food suffering bowels is that while we are constantly pushing.. constantly striving.. constantly trying to make sure all our bases are covered, there are people that I wait on everyday who are just skating through life.. and think they are ENTITLED TO SKATE THROUGH LIFE.
The Crack Whore can run an air conditioner in every damn window of her apartment 24/7 and doesn’t have to care about what her electric bill is because she doesn’t HAVE TO PAY her electric bill.
She’s on welfare… the state pays it.
And guess what? On Tuesday, MY electricity was turned off because I owed a 28.00 back balance.
You read that right…
FOR 28.00 FUCKING DOLLARS, THEY CUT MY ELECTRICITY OFF.
Or how about this one:
One of my regular customers came in on Monday asking if she could get a few things to hold her family over until her husband got paid on Wednesday. Knowing that she has kids to feed, I said “sure”. So she got something like 25.00 worth of stuff.
As I was slicing her lunch meat, she tells me that she will be having Gastric Bypass surgery in October.
Now, there’s no denying that she’s over-weight. But Gastric Bypass? There’s no way that I would have thought that she’d be a candidate for it. I know people personally that have had the surgery and they were OBESE. Like, can’t fit through the front door obese. This woman is no where near that size.
But guess what? She’s on welfare.. so guess who’s paying for the surgery?
At any rate.. it wasn’t even that pissed me off so much.. on Wednesday, she came in to pay her bill with her mother. While she was waiting for me to finish up with a few people in front of her, she started checking our our shelves saying that she had her first nutrition meeting and was looking for things that she would be able to eat after her surgery.
She then tells me that what she is going to do is join Nutri-Systems after her surgery so she doesn’t have to worry about counting calories or proteins or whatever the hell she has to check.
You know what the going rate is for a monthly subscription to Nutri-System?
299.95 A MONTH!
You can’t make your fucking money stretch so you have to ask for credit from me to feed your kids but you’re going to spend three hundred dollars a month for Nutri-Systems???
WHAT THE FUCK!
So.. as delicately as I can be.. I asked her how she was going to be able to swing it and you know what her answer was?
“… oh, the state is paying for it because I have to have the surgery for medical reasons”
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??
I had to swallow my tongue because you see.. years ago.. I was 12 sizes bigger then I am now. I’m not that big anymore because I just started to eat right and I exercised. A lot. And eventually, I got down to a size 12.
No surgery .. no state paid food delivery service.. nothing but determination and commitment.
Then there was the whole glasses fiasco.
I needed new glasses and Chief needed glasses period. My insurance basically covered the exam.. the frames.. and the lenses but not anything extra like transitions :: where the lens get dark automatically in sunlight :: or UV protection or that kind of stuff. Chief needed a bifocal so because that was out of pocket also, I had to give up the transitions so that he could have the bifocals.
Okay.. whatever.. his was more important then mine and we could have only afforded one so the bifocals it was.
Two weeks ago, Weed came into the store and I forget how the subject even came up but he pulled out his little welfare medical card and said, “… I LOVE this thing. Do you know that I got two pairs of glasses that turn into sunglasses.. and I didn’t even NEED them I just got them because I could.”
Remember that scene in Austin Powers when the mannequins head explode?
Yea. That was me.
Oh.. and did I also tell you that the state is paying for him to get his G.E.D and is giving him a laptop so that he could study and look for a job? All because HE WENT TO JAIL FOR BURGLARY AND DEALING?
Or how about the woman that comes in bitching that her 700.00 a month in food stamps isn’t enough?
Or the other woman who BUYS a food stamp card from some barfly for half the amount in cash?
Or the couple who come in saying that yes, they can afford to have a second baby because they’ll be getting more food stamps when the baby is born?
Is it me or is something wrong here?
Why can’t the widowed father of 5 kids get any type of help from the state because omg.. he actually has a JOB.. but a baby making factory can get free food, free housing and a monthly cash stipend and is doing NOTHING to make her life better? Because to HER .. her life is SWEET.
“… I ain’t gotsta do nuffin’. Dey gotsta give me my money” .. that being an actual conversation I had when I asked what she was going to do when the state finally goes bankrupt and her food stamp card becomes useless
Some would say that I have nothing to bitch about because I choose to accept the food stamp card in my store. But I couldn’t have a store unless I take food stamps. The majority of my customers are on it.. and instead of having a moral struggle with it, I just feel like I’m basically getting my own money back.. since as a working person, my taxes go to providing them their lifestyle.
So you’ll have to forgive me when I hear about how the current administration wants to give MORE of my hard earned income to somebody else.
I’m struggling but because I had a job.. and I own a store.. nobody cares. Nobody is giving my kids free school supplies.. or school clothes.. or lunches.
No one cares about how I’m going to make my next car payment or utility payment or the fact that I had to cut out a lot of things that we’ve become accustomed to in order to keep a roof over our heads.
As long as there are more people with their hand out then there are with their hands in their pocket.. we are going to be forced to dish it out. And that’s just plain wrong.
Give a man to fish and he’ll eat for one day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat everyday
… or something like that.
For more details on Food Stamps, read THIS post that I wrote back in April
<< end rant >>
LIVING ME 101 