Recently, I read a blog on how a couple ate for a dollar a day for a month. Their blog pointed out that there were still hungry people in America and that some families ate on a dollar a day everyday and did not get interviewed over it or get a million hits on their blog. Poverty and even hunger still exist in America today.
My city alone teems with 1000s of homeless that eat what they can at soup kitchens and shelters. Others, who are disabled and have a fixed income or have a very low paying job do not eat properly and pay with their health. People who have enough money to eat will eat a poor diet of mainly fast food and convenience foods and impoverish their bodies and minds in the process. Others, especially women, develop eating disorders in order to stay “thin” literally starve their bodies and brains to fit a male ideal developed in boardrooms. They take good food that a homeless person would thank God for and throw it up in the toilet, or refuse food altogether except for a tiny bit and look every bit like a Concentration Camp victim. On the other end, obesity is such a problem that clothing is getting larger and larger and things like public seating, public toilets, etc are being made much larger. Huge people in go carts are seen in supermarkets buying yet more food whilst their neighbor will starve onto emaciation. Healthy eating habits are rare in this country. I think prejudice against fat people is as horrible as prejudice against people of color or the disabled but everyone must admit we are getting bigger and bigger. It seems that it’s either feast or famine. Either eat, eat, eat, into oblivion, or starve into emaciation. The other “food” disorder is when one finds very little to eat because of a strict regimen of self imposed rules that do not have to do with health problems. It’s like being a vegetarian on crack. It’s called orthodexia.
Whether rich or poor, food is the issue in the 21st century. One population that also has troubles with food is us, the ti’s. Our problems are different yet no less hard to deal with.
Ti’s have to deal with food-related problems on many fronts. The first ring of ti food hell may be the most obvious: the place where most of us (except lucky farm dwellers or people with large gardens) get our food–the grocery store. Shopping becomes a big nightmare for a ti. Sometimes, it is easier for a ti to eat out all the time rather than endure Store Hell, but as most of us are impoverished we must endure it. I will post from my own experience here:
A ti has 5 main problems when food shopping:
- Other “shoppers” that are perps
- Security Guards
- Store Staff
- V2k when selecting items to distract and disturb the ti.
- Getting “stopped” for a receipt or accused of stealing: just another form of harassment.
As a ti I get followed from aisle to aisle and have perps already waiting in front of items that they kn0w I will get. They will get into my face as much as possible. They hang around even more when I get fresh produce or anything that is loose as they think they can make me think they “poisoned” it between the time it takes me to select it and put it in the bag. Other perps will try and run into me as I walk past them in the store. Other make comments.
Security guards will follow me around the store and give me the “eye” when entering or exiting the store. They will also get into “conversations” about me with other staff. They will go out of their way to be “friendly” to other customers.
The store staff are almost always in on it and will be deliberately rude to me, laugh at me with other staff, say directed comments at me in passing and other tricks. The people who work the meat department are the worst and I have gotten ill when I have eaten hand selected meat from the meat dept. I only get the wrapped meat for the most part. (The little I can afford.) Even if I just approach the meat counter to look people will start talking about me in the back. I think meat union people are probably the most arrogant of them all as they handle blood and guts all day for a living and probably feel pretty tough. Maybe I should become a vegetarian…not that the staff in health food stores are any less perpish.
I have gotten “stopped ” for my receipt at the grocery store a couple of times and felt it was harassment and that they never suspected I stole anything at all. The last time they pulled that crap on me I got so angry I got a 20 dollar gift certificate from the store manager and I have n0t been asked for my receipt ANYWHERE ever again. This not only happened in grocery stores but at the drug store and at convenience stores. (Oh, I could tell you a convenience store nightmare…)
The worst part of shopping hell is having the V2k “comment” on every selection I make and telling me what they will “do” to me if I get this or get that…or have what sounds like real people in another aisle comment on it and say “yeah that’s it” or something like that. It makes shopping a total hell and requires me to wear headphones to the store to block it out.
The next ring of ti food hell is food stamps. Most ti’s are brought down to poverty even if they weren’t poor before. To be able to use our limited resources on bills and necessities poor people will apply for food stamps. A ti has to go through hell to get on and stay on food stamps. I can only speak from my own experience but here’s my misery.
First, some of these things happen to all food stamp recipients so a target is not singled out, yet, it sure feels like it at the time. Food stamps are not so easy to get: the applicant must come up with tons of info just to get into the program and then keep getting “re-certified” for them every SIX MONTHS in order to continue. The food stamp people also hold the purse strings for extra help with medical bills (medicaid type programs) so discontinuing food stamps is NOT an option. Even if you only get a few bucks a month in stamps, if you are disabled, you will jump thru the hoops to get them.
You must be very poor to qualify at all. Only large families and the unemployed without govt checks get a decent amount at all. You have to prove your poverty over and over again. They require bank statements every time you recertify and they look at EVERY transaction. The food stamp tech wrote me a letter and asked about a 30 DOLLAR deposit once and I had to tell her it was a gift, which it was. You are made to feel like a criminal. If you earn only a tiny bit, not even enough to get taxed on, they need to know about it and will demand DOCUMENTATION for it. If a food stamp recipient earns as much as a buck outside of their regular check it is sent AUTOMATICALLY via computer to their office. The only way to get around it is to work under the table and even that is not fool proof I’m sure, having had no experience working under the table….
The staff at these places are usually rude and ruder to ti’s. I have had cruel directed comments made “at” me as I sat in the food stamp office. I have had workers treat me like scum. Others were nice, for awhile, but “turned” later.
The amount you get is usually very small. Last year, I got an increase for some reason (I think because they revamped it????), but I already got a letter saying it has been reduced starting next month., but not to the level it was at before. What a shock. I think the feds examined what the local offices were doing and raised the stamp level for disabled people. I guess I shall enjoy it while it lasts. My “normal” amount that I get is ten bucks. That’s right: ten bucks. Ten bucks buys nothin, but I have to stay on the stamps in order to get the medical benefits.
The third ring of ti food hell is what the stores charge. Stores in urban neighborhoods charge more and give worse quality. Even in my gentrified neighborhood. The local store now stocks some very high priced luxury groceries that the local yuppies eat, but the price of the regular groceries remains the highest in town. Going to suburban stores is doable but hard on the bus when schlepping bags. Prices are a bit lower but staff at suburban stores seem sooo put out when poorer people shop “their” store. Warehouse stores are ok if you can qualify, but it’s almost impossible to get enough if you use the bus to justify belonging. I “shopped the warehouse” on the bus only a couple of times. I had to pack my little wire cart to the max and then it was way too heavy to get onto the bus steps so the driver had to use the wheelchair lift…sometimes they act all put out if you yourself are not in a chair or have a baby buggy. It was cold that day and I just missed the previous bus so I sat in 20 degree weather with wind chill and I had to transfer the bus and do it all over again a few miles later. Warehouse stores are usually in suburbs…there is one Sam’s Club closer to town…( I used to use the other warehouse store despite cruel perping every time I went) maybe I will join, but Wal Mart employees are the biggest perps of all.
The fourth ring of ti food hell is food banks. In typical conditions, food banks provide much needed food for people whose resources are low and cannot afford to spend precious utility/rent/medical money on food. Fo0d bank staff are rude, usually there are long waits for food and they ask very nosy questions to get what is usually a small amount of food with most of it being food I usually do not buy or eat. One food bank requires a face to face “interview” with a staffer each time you get one of their small bags of food. It is totally demeaning and insulting…it implies that if you are asking for food you are not capable of running your own life…no, if you are asking for food, you have no family, and probably no friends and probably no job…most food bank applicants are not on alcohol or drugs…Alcohol is very expensive, so are cigarettes and I could not eat if I bought them. Drugs are a no no of course and a ti would get caught and jailed the first time he bought them unless it was part of his/her “protocol” to use drugs. There is also a risk of altered food from a food bank as you usually do not pick out your own food and if the staff are perps it would be an excellent opportunity to mess with a ti.
The fifth ring of food hell for the ti is soup lines, “bum feeds”, or whatever else you call free hot meals served to the public. Another blogger has posted extensively on them but I can relate my own experiences. I only use soup lines in an emergency if I literally have almost no food in the house. When I go, I can be assured of rude staff and perps posing as “customers” there. I used to volunteer at a soup line, but, when I went back as a customer, previously friendly co workers acted like they did not know me. I was totally humiliated.
I also get customers that will try and talk to me. One such customer was hired to trigger me from his “name” on down. I took him with a grain of salt, of course, as he was saying that “spaceships” followed him around the country. Other customers will try and make sexual advances–totally unwelcome for obvious reasons. Sometimes I have to move if said customer will not leave me alone. I also get laughed at by groups of customers which I have to ignore or cause the ubiquitous “scene” the perps like so much. The food, also, leaves much to be desired. The staff will give tiny portions of “real” food like protein and fruits and vegetables to get you to fill up on donated older baked goods. Sometimes the result of “eating for free” is getting very fat. The food serving place I’ve been to the most at least lets you get seconds and even let you take leftovers with you, not common for other food places. One food place around here gives such lousy meals and small portions I wonder at the people who go there, but, I guess something is better than nothing. A peanut butter sandwich is still food.
The sixth ring of ti food hell is the restaurant, usually the fast food kind. Going to eat out is a leap of faith for a ti as most fast food workers seem to be “in on it”. Sometimes, I will walk out of a place without ordering if the cashier seems too nervous or weird as I suspect a possible poisoning if I eat there. If I eat in a “sit down” restaurant I will order the same thing the person with me has so they might not poison it or go chinese because chinese is shared and staffers may be afraid to mess with with that will go to others as well. If I go to the “buffet” to avoid the “leap of faith” I never get the “drinks” they offer as they come from the back. I bring my own. “not even water” they ask? Not even water. I will be cluster f*cked at the buffet islands as I take food and followed around and am always mindful of my plate and the position of other diners hands. I sit far from the aisle in a restaurant so a passer by cant toss something in my food or drink. I hunch over my food, too. It’s just ridiculous. Still, “eating out” is really the only way to get a really good meal since the price of groceries to buy the kind of stuff they serve in restaurants is usually higher than just getting one meal out. (obvious exceptions are burritoes which are made for next to nothing at home). The last part of ti food hell is “fine dining” which is done extremely infrequently due to income and friend limitations. You would think in a sitdown restaurand you’d get treated well, but not so for me. I still get abused by staff passing by, get the wrong order, not asked about refills, etc…I feel like a total ass plunking down megabucks for a sitdown meal or even being treated to one and being treated like shit by the staff.
S0 that’s the food situation for this ti. I’m sure others have lots of stories as well.
