A small trip to the grocery...a large aggravation.

[iamwhatiseem]

We have all seen it...each time frowning in quiet frustration.
I saw it again today.
I decided to make a tomato-cucumber salad to go with chicken breast I am going to grill, but I didn't have any red onions, or for that matter cucumbers either.
I am standing in the "fast lane" looking at what this women and daughter in front of me were buying.
A quick inventory and I summed up the following:

4 -12 packs of soda pop.
2 - packages of bologna.
1 giant bag of cheese-ball puffs.
1 giant bag of cheese popcorn.
1 loaf of bread.
2 - 1 litre cold coke bottles (guess they can't wait till they get home..need it now)

Annnnd...3 packs of cigarettes.

She mentioned to the clerk to ring up the cigarettes separately. The clerk didn't blink an eye.
Then I understood why - she paid for the junk food and pop with a food stamp card, and the f*cking cigarettes with cash.

Yet another example of wasted taxpayer money.
Man that pisses me off.

 

[strollingbones]

somebody's having a party!

 

[boedicca]

The bologna reminds me of the Polka Dot Man (one of the various colorful characters who hang around the Berkeley campus).

The Polka Dot Man wore clothes on which he had painted red and white dots. One day, I was behind him in line at the grocery store. He had a basket filled with packages of sliced bologna - nothing but bologna.

Then I figured it out - Big Pink Dots.

 

[Madeline]

Mebbe you could make up a list of foods only poor people can eat, iamwhatiseem. Jesus, the snobbery of some people.

 

[strollingbones]

i dont thing it was the food that got him...i think it was the 3 packs of ciggies

 

[Madeline]

Seems to me it was both, bones. Elsewise, why whine about the cold soda? But no matter....mebbe what we need are people like iamwhatiseem to check the tax returns of anyone who wants to buy cigarettes, so poor people cannot get them.

Unless you have been poor, you have no fucking idea what daily life is like for them. Take your morally superior attitude and shove it up your ass.

 

[camcooh2]

What's so bad about smoking cigarettes?

 

[Baruch Menachem]

It looks like the Darwin Award Diet

I think the attitude is, he is paying for it and he is insulted that they are spending his money on this kind of stuff.

I admit I always peek when I see people paying with food stamps, and I always find their diet choices irritating. Why this is so, as it is not my money, is one of the great mysteries of the science of Psychology.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Mebbe you could make up a list of foods only poor people can eat, iamwhatiseem. Jesus, the snobbery of some people.

Snobbery? Hilarious.

I suppose you have no problem with someone spending $100 a month or so on cigarettes getting taxpayer funded Mountain Dew?
Why should a country that is in VERY serious financial shape be buying people soda pop and snack food?

grow up.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

What's so bad about smoking cigarettes?

Not near as bad as your reply to the thread.

 

[Madeline]

Mebbe you could make up a list of foods only poor people can eat, iamwhatiseem. Jesus, the snobbery of some people.

Snobbery? Hilarious.

I suppose you have no problem with someone spending $100 a month or so on cigarettes getting taxpayer funded Mountain Dew?
Why should a country that is in VERY serious financial shape be buying people soda pop and snack food?

grow up.

When you are very poor, the aid you receive in food stamps occassionally exceeds your needs. (In some ways, it also falls short...food stamps cannot be used for nonconsumables and so people struggle to buy toilet paper and shampoo.) This excess sometimes gets spent on frivolities. If there is someone who has absolutely no indulgences, I'd like to meet them. Meanwhile, you can take this moral superiority of yours and shove it.

 

[fyrenza]

I'd certainly prefer for my tax dollars to provide nutritious food to poor folks,

and am horrified that soda pop is an allowed purchase with FOOD stamps.

 

[Madeline]

It looks like the Darwin Award Diet

I think the attitude is, he is paying for it and he is insulted that they are spending his money on this kind of stuff.

I admit I always peek when I see people paying with food stamps, and I always find their diet choices irritating. Why this is so, as it is not my money, is one of the great mysteries of the science of Psychology.

No one is "peeking" into iamwhatiseem's cupboards....why should people who need food stamps be exposed to this person's attitude problems?

 

[Madeline]

I'd certainly prefer for my tax dollars to provide nutritious food to poor folks,

and am horrified that soda pop is an allowed purchase with FOOD stamps.

Would you be any more comfy if this family was buying an expensive cut of meat? The food choices of the poor are probably less than ideal...but so are most of yours. Why can't a family on food stamps have some comfort food? Mebbe we should just drop off baskets of government cheese and powdered eggs and be done with it?

 

[iamwhatiseem]

I'd certainly prefer for my tax dollars to provide nutritious food to poor folks,

and am horrified that soda pop is an allowed purchase with FOOD stamps.

It gets worse.
Candy Bars, and even energy drinks can be bought by food cards.

I am genuinely pleased that most here have the sense to see that something is wrong with this picture.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

... Why can't a family on food stamps have some comfort food? Mebbe we should just drop off baskets of government cheese and powdered eggs and be done with it?

No one is saying they shouldn't be allowed to have comfort foods or anything else for that matter...the point is that they should buy that with their own money...not taxpayer money.

 

[Madeline]

What precisely is wrong, iamwhatiseem? Tell us. Is it wrong that people who need food stamps also enjoy sugary foods? Is there some sort of elitism at work here?

You have to earn X before you can have a twinkie?

Fuck off.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

What precisely is wrong, iamwhatiseem? Tell us. Is it wrong that people who need food stamps also enjoy sugary foods? Is there some sort of elitism at work here?

You have to earn X before you can have a twinkie?

Fuck off.

You have only one side to your brain or something?
Are you incapable of understanding the difference between people buying whatever the heck they want with their own money - and buying frivolous items with taxpayer money?

 

[fyrenza]

Would you be any more comfy if this family was buying an expensive cut of meat? The food choices of the poor are probably less than ideal...but so are most of yours. Why can't a family on food stamps have some comfort food? Mebbe we should just drop off baskets of government cheese and powdered eggs and be done with it?

Do you honestly consider soda pop "comfort food"???

The big difference between me and them is that I spend money that we EARN for our foodstuffs, and I'm sort of wEndering how you presume to know exactly WHAT I buy.

YOU obviously have No Problem telling folks how they should spend, but lash out when they want something BETTER for the folks that our tax dollars feed. Talk about Some Nerve and an attitude problem...

 

[Pepe]

Would you be any more comfy if this family was buying an expensive cut of meat? The food choices of the poor are probably less than ideal...but so are most of yours. Why can't a family on food stamps have some comfort food? Mebbe we should just drop off baskets of government cheese and powdered eggs and be done with it?

That is actually a better policy than the one currently in place.

All major Urban areas have days and usually Churches were Commodites can be procured for the poor. Those with EBT Cards and ID.

Would it not be better to give the "poor" dried beans, corn meal, flower, baking soda, cheese and depending on bona fide family size, a chit for so many dollars that can only be used for milk, formula, eggs, fresh produce and fresh meat?

Certainly more beneficial for a healthy life as well as a motivator to rise above one's current station in life.

I am all about giving you a hand up NOT a hand out.

When I was young and poor, back before poor became fashionable, I found it to be damn inconvenient as well as embarrassing.