Criminal Stalking at the Piggly Wiggly

The stained-glass window my family funded.

My family had money. Not Rockefeller or Carnegie money, but … money. My ancestors built churches and schools and didn't name them after the family. We have a long history of charitable works and looking out for our communities and those less fortunate.

Let's just say that my ancestors would be disappointed in some of you and your disgust for the poor. My great-great grandfather paid for a Methodist church to be built in his small town. It certainly was no big-city cathedral, but it was a decent size that could accommodate several times the population of the entire town and all surrounding communities. And then it burned down, not long after it was built. I'm sure this devastated my grandfather, but his faith in God was strong and he gladly donated another generous amount of money to the construction of the new Methodist church (brick, obviously) and paid for its largest stained glass window. 

He never expected accolades for this generosity. He didn't expect people to thank him every time they saw him in town. 

My grandmother, who married into his family, was very busy with the church. She always instructed me to be kind and generous, especially to those who are in need. You could dismiss this, saying that because my family was wealthy, it was easy for them to be so giving to the community. But it wasn't always easy. During the Depression, they had to mortgage their farm several times. Those mortgages had barely been paid off when, in the 1980s, my grandfather died after a long, expensive fight with Alzheimer's. They had to liquidate everything that branch of the family had built. Still my grandmother's kindness lived on.

My ancestors would be horrified to see the way many of you are behaving towards the poor; they would be horrified that many of you don't even possess basic manners.

I marvel at the atrocious behavior you "Food Stamp Vigilantes" brag about on the internet, behavior that would be roundly condemned by even the most lenient etiquette advice guru:

1) You police what people put in their carts.

You're in your local supermarket. There's a good chance you don't know anybody. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a tattooed or pierced or black or Hispanic or dirty or trashy or obese person enter the frozen snacks aisle. Or maybe it's the haggard-looking mother with 6 kids in Produce, and they won't keep their hands off the apples. But there's just something about this person that makes you certain that they are receiving food assistance. Which means you need to police their shopping.

Forgetting that what you're doing is criminal stalking, the owners of the store made a decision to allow people to pay for their food with food stamps. Which takes it into "None-Of-Your-Damn-Business" territory. I understand that you have been goaded into believing that there are people out there taking advantage of you and your tax dollars, but that doesn't give you any right to criminally harass another shopper based on their looks.

And just because someone has tattoos or piercings, just because someone didn't feel like changing out of their pajama pants before venturing out in public (many military wives are guilty of that), and especially just because people have a whole herd of kids tagging along after them doesn't mean they're on food stamps. The most ironic part of this? While you're following the family with ten kids whose parents look like they work as carnies in a traveling circus (the parents who have never been on public assistance), the sweet old lady standing next to you is wondering how to make her food stamps go a little further this month because she'd like to have a special dinner for her granddaughter's birthday.

You wonder why our youth are developing such a profound sense of entitlement? It's not because people are on food stamps. It's because people like you appoint themselves Grocery Sheriff because they pay "so much!" into the system. Well, you don't. No one does. If you make $50,000 per year, you pay about $36 PER YEAR for other people to eat.¹Ten cents per day. Sorry, but I don't think that entitles you to sneak around after someone, pursing your lips in righteous indignation while making mental notes that you couldn't possibly afford the big bottle of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup (and why can people on food stamps buy chocolate syrup anyway?). All of this drama over THIRTY-SIX DOLLARS. That's three dollars per month.

And guess what? That "nice" military guy that you just stopped and thanked for his service? The soldier that couldn't possibly be on public assistance? There's a good chance that if he's an E5 or below, his family is on food stamps or WIC. These are the people I KNOW you thank for their service while not putting pressure on our government to pay them any better. Our military family had to scrimp and save just to make ends meet. I remember being embarrassed the first time I went to the commissary with my pile of WIC checks, until I saw that every second woman there had the same pile of checks and their carts were overflowing with all the same food I was buying.

2) You get close enough to see how people are purchasing their items. 

I can honestly say that the only time I notice how people are paying is when they use coins or checks, and that's only because it takes so much longer. And it takes longer because the majority of the time they are elderly and their hands don't work as well as they used to.

Why would I get so close to someone that I could see what kind of card they're using? Not only do I not want to stand that close to a stranger, but it's none of my business.

It reminds me of the cart full of soda I bought for a barbecue last summer. Didn't buy it on food stamps. At the time, we had never been on food stamps and had not been on WIC for a long time. But the older woman behind me couldn't help but announce her opinion that we should not be buying that much soda. She was visibly upset that we were buying an entire cart full of sugary drinks. It was the first time in my life that I ever thought, How is it any of your business? It wasn't like I had a Mountain Dew bong crammed down my toddler's throat in lane 5. It was just my husband and I, buying soda for a barbecue.

3) You follow people to the parking lot to see what kind of car they drive.

So not only did you grossly invade a fellow shopper's privacy by stalking them around the grocery store. You also spied on them when they paid for their groceries. Now you feel the need to follow these alleged crooks out to the parking lot. (And what are you, a Time Lord that controls the space/time continuum? How do you manage to get through checkout in time to see what car they're getting into?)

If they get into a brand-new Escalade, what are you going to do about it?

The most you can do is know that they drive a nice car. Even if they squeeze themselves, 5 kids and all their groceries into a brand-new Lamborghini, you have no way to turn them in. You don't know their names, you don't know where they live and you don't know their phone number (unless you stole their wallet in a moment of unbridled vigilantism).

So when you find out what kind of car they drive, then what?

What if they drive a 30-year-old car that looks like the only thing holding it together is the blessing of a Guardian Angel? Will it really make you feel better, knowing they drive this hunk of junk? Well, it shouldn't. You should not feel better that someone you assume is on food stamps drives a car that barely gets them to work every day.

You don't even know that they own that fancy Escalade. It could be their mom's or friend's or brother's car; their 20-year-old pile of junk could be in the shop, sitting on a back lot because the part they need is half a paycheck and the finance company couldn't care less whether it runs. And it was a choice between the car part or the electric bill.

I don't understand what your goal is. That all poor people will starve to death and stop sponging off you? There are dozens of corporations out their sponging far more money off you than that family with 3 kids. And the most you can do is go online and inseminate the world with your seeds of resentment and hope that a bunch of equally close-minded jerks will agree with you. The government certainly isn't going to transfer the burden of food stamps to companies. Because you have no power to make those corporations shoulder more of the burden, you whine to all your friends about "some guy on food stamps" that might have it better than you. That someone out there doesn't have to work as hard for what they got. Why does he get to have tattoos and not have to pay for groceries? Why does she get to leave the house in sweat pants and get soda for free? And all of this effort and drama over a measly $3 per month. 

This behavior is reprehensible, and yet you brag about doing it. Can you all stop acting like the immature sibling who thinks they got the smaller piece of cake? Life isn't always fair. And you all love saying that, unless, of course, it applies to you. Then life should ALWAYS be fair. And if it isn't, then you're going to find the easiest target - not the real villains, like all those companies and banks on corporate welfare, because that's scary - but the easiest target on which to focus all your wrath. The poor are easy targets, so hold on to that fear and never fight the real enemy. Just keep following weirdos around the grocery store, I'm sure you'll never get in any trouble doing that.

http://www.examiner.com/article/a-person-making-50-000-a-year-pays-10-cents-a-day-taxes-for-food-stamps

I'm the One at the Food Stamp Office with the iPhone and Dooney & Bourke Handbag

Humble Pie, Paid for in Food Stamps

In October 2014, I was forced to apply for food stamps for the first time in my life. It probably would have been more humiliating if I hadn't been so emotionally distraught and in such desperate need.

Our family had been on assistance once before; when I married my second husband, his military E4 (specialist) pay just wasn't covering all our expenses, so we applied for and received WIC. It was a generous amount of food and greatly helped us for about a year.

The marriage was sometimes good but mostly bad. He wasn't ready for the responsibility or stress of three small children and was already somewhat mentally ill. I was completely surprised by his behavior early in our marriage because we had been best friends for 11 years before we got married. He never told me about the rehab he went through shortly before we started dating.

He came home in November 2013, a couple months earlier than expected, which was tremendously disruptive to our family. We hadn't lived together for 4 years due to deployment and his being stationed at the Dugway Proving Grounds, where they test biological, nuclear and chemical weapons. I refused to allow our children to live there.

So he came back and said he was being recruited by the FBI. My friend said she wasn't sure that could be true because just a couple months earlier, he had a DUI. He almost hit a police car. He received probation for the offense because if my ex-husband was capable of anything, it was controlling people's minds and making them do what he wanted. Some people will laugh at me for believing him about his recruitment claim, but he is a really smart guy and they work with incredibly sensitive matters on Dugway, so I thought it could be true.

But then the lies got bigger. Instead of being recruited for the plain ol' FBI, he was actually being recruited by the FBI to work at the International Space Station in Belgium. He told us he would begin training on July 23 and that the whole family would move to Belgium in January 2015. I was suspicious that he was that sought-after, having worked overseas myself in a American corporate law firm that represented some of the biggest companies in the world.

Of course, July 23 came and went, and he didn't go to Quantico, so I demanded he get a job. He started going to what I thought was work, but he wasn't actually going to work. I think he actually did go down to Fort Carson every day, but I don't know what he did down there; that's what he did for two months.

The week before 9/11, he told me he was going to be deployed to Texas to fight ISIL on the Texas/Mexico border, because of his experience with chemical and biological weapons. Then, he told all of us that he was being sent with an army unit to Africa to build ebola clinics. There was too much, all at once. Plus no pay check.

Never Trust an Addict

I probably forgot to mention his raging drug addiction. I knew something was wrong not long after he came home around Thanksgiving 2013. He would be talking to me and fall asleep in the middle of a sentence. Just be talking and then trail off and fall asleep, his head slumping over to the side. Sometimes he would start snoring.

I thought I could control the addiction. The VA made it tough; every month, they prescribed him 120 10mg oxy tablets and 90 time-release synthetic morphine tablets called Opana. I'd make him give me the pills as soon as he filled the prescription, but he was too smart for me! At first, my plan worked. Sometimes I would give him more than the prescribed 4 per day because he does have a mild neck condition. But then, in April, he took the bottle of pills and switched most of them out with extra-strength Tylenols. I didn't know the difference until he told me he needed some and to check the imprint on the tablets so he would get oxy, not Tylenol.

In June, he was up to 12-14 oxy tablets per day. How he didn't overdose, I don't know. But I was tired of the passing out, I was tired of the strange behavior, and mostly, I was just done with him.

I kicked him out on September 30, and my friend told me to apply for food stamps the next day. It was some of the best advice I've ever received. They also signed me up for Medicaid and TANF (welfare), and said I could take a few months to start looking for work and sort through all these issues, although I would get much less money doing it that way.

His erratic behavior frightened me. I spoke to him a couple times on the phone and he had no remorse whatsoever for what he had done. I tried to get a restraining order; I didn't have enough to get one the first time, but the judge told me to immediately go file for divorce. Of course that made my husband's behavior even scarier, and he ended up doing a lot of things that landed him in jail, convicted on two domestic violence charges. He will have served his entire sentence and will get out on May 11, 2015. But between the divorce and protecting my family, I was appearing in court or filing papers at the court about every other day for several months.

I couldn't possibly afford a lawyer, and he only receives a small pension from the VA. The judge couldn't have ordered him to pay court costs so the financial burden of a lawyer would have fallen entirely on me.

He caused great emotional and financial hardship to our family. Early in the ordeal, we found out he hadn't paid the utilities bill - or any other bills - for about 6 months, the entire time we lived in our new rental house. While he was in jail, our landlord evicted us for non-payment (my husband tricked us into thinking he had paid the rent and our landlord into thinking I was the one stalling on the rent check).

There Should be a Grandfather Clause for Luxury Items

So I own this fantastic handbag. It's a genuine luxury bag, purchased at Nordstrom's with money he said was his severance pay.

I have discovered that many things he said were a lie and some things were true, but I can't get an angle on the money we got when he first retired from the army. All I know is that it's all gone or hidden. I can't even sell this bag on eBay, because of all the fakes that flooded the site for so long. I looked into selling it somewhere else, but I would get about $100 for it. And I'll tell you where to shove it if you think that's a good deal.

And yeah, I have an iPhone. Wanna know how? Because my first ex-husband didn't pay his child support for about a year and a half; I never went after him for it (he was unemployed), so he does actually owe me money. He put me on his cell account, and this iPhone was the best deal on his plan. He could also pay over 2 years. And yes, I suppose he could have purchased the crappy little flip phone, but it wasn't part of any plan so it would have cost $100 out of pocket. My husband hacked into all my electronic devices, so I was forced into getting a new phone regardless. He even managed to get the number for my throwaway phone by hacking into my e-mail.

So if you're mad about me being on food stamps and having an iPhone, why don't ya go talk to my husband about it. Let's just say that at the time of writing, he's a captive audience.

And lastly, about my car. I own two cars: A 1990 BMW we bought for my daughter to drive and a 1989 Cadillac. Together, they are worth about $2000. When my husband was still living at the house, I drove a 2006 Rav4; when I kicked him out, I made him take it because it was reliable and I didn't want him to have the excuse of the car breaking down to come home.

If you're wondering where that car is, he abandoned it on the side of the road, the police came and got it and it was auctioned for $800.

Neither of the two cars I have are reliable. Two motor mounts on the BMW broke about a month ago and I'm waiting for a mechanic friend to fix it. The Cadillac was never meant to be driven every day, especially after the entire exhaust system fell off last October. And because of that, I have to drive my mom's new Subaru. Definitely a nice, expensive car that someone on food stamps couldn't possibly afford. And guess what? I DON'T, BECAUSE IT'S NOT MY CAR!!

Every time I've been to the food stamp office, everyone there looks in desperate need of public assistance. I'm probably the one person someone saw that one time who was flooded with righteous indignation over someone having a - GASP! - Dooney & Bourke bag in the food stamps office. But never, ever forget that you have no idea who these people are or what their stories are. Tell me that there has never been an instance where you found out something about a friend that totally shocked you ... but you know all the dirty secrets of a complete stranger you're interacting with in a public place? Have you ever even been in the food stamp office?

You all need to get a handle on your judgement because honestly, if I can end up on food stamps, ANYONE can wind up on food stamps.