Welfare Recipiant
Standing in line for social services is a blast. The building is downtown and I lived just a few blocks away. My buddy Erika went with me and despite getting up early to get a good place in line we were standing outside the building in the heat. It could have certainly been worse. Within an hour of our arriving the line was around the corner.
We ran into Nick in line. We shot the shit and talked about our misadventures with the job market. Nick had been caught giving out all kinds free merchandise when he worked at a little convenience store. He was busted and now, if he got a paycheck money came out of it to pay back his former boss for damages. So Nick didn't bother with a paycheck. He was keeping himself busy playing music in several different bands around town traveling around the states. A little General Assistance and some food stamps would serve him fine.
I myself was partialy curious about just how free the free money was and partially responding to a feeling of entitlement. The government taxed the shit out of us all and for what. The education they offered was crap, I had no health care and they were spending most of our money on bullets and bombs which was bad enough even before you considered how much they overpayed for these instruments of destruction. So fuck 'em, they could buy me some corn flakes.
We waited around a good part of the day and I tried not to be judgemental but it sure seemed like an awful lot of the folks around me were doing this with the same additude as me. Dude with the long ass hair and black sabbath concert tee, long unkempt goatee, he wasn't looking to hard to enter the job market. I figured if they said no to me I could say "Good, I didn't deserve it anyway. You're being wise with the money for once." and if they did give it to me I could say, "Shit, you'll give my money to anyone won't you? I'm glad I'm here getting it back before that lazy ass behind me gets it."
I wish they'd spend it helping people who were disabled or uneducated. I wish they'd learn to supplement the money folks made at their shitty McJobs instead of cutting off their support if they made even half what it would take to make a decent living. I wish they'd provide healthcare and education, but I've never been one to think that welfare was what they were spending all that missing funding on and as long as I didn't see it helping anybody out I was wiling to help myself.
Such was the kind of talk we engaged in as we waited in line. Congratulating and supporting each other on our decision to get on the dole. Helping to convince each other that what we were doing was more than fine, it was dandy.
Finally, after close to two hours I met with a case worker and I attended a bullshit class on what was expected of me while I was on G.A. I didn't listen well, I was too distracted by the mans' amasing side burns. My caseworker looked like Elvis towards the end of his life, maybe even after he'd passed. He was rude and short tempered and was the total Ayn Randian stereo type of a man resenting those he's supposed to be helping. I'm sure he'd someday be on a conservative talk show saying, "Oh yes. I saw it with my own eyes. Young, perfectly healthy white boy, coming through, taking the governments money while he talked bad of that same government. Made me sick." Elvis handed me some food stamps, told me my checks would be on the way and asked if I needed any hotel vouchers for the next few nights. I told him I was fine with the stamps and the check in the mail. He handed me a bus pass and I was on my way.
The food stamps were amusing. They've done away with them now and it's easy to see why. You could be paid change less than a dollar in cash. So you'd buy some 25 cent gum with a dollar stamp. Do this once at each register in the place and you have some gum and enough change to get a bottle of something. Or just sell the food stamps at half their dollar value and get your bottles that way. Hell you could just do the household grocery shopping in exchange for your roommates taking care of the booze needs.
Even handing out food at the food closet isn't immune to corruption. I had a friend who worked at the recycling truck, issuing checks in exchange for shopping cart loads of bottles and cans. He would do all of his personal food shopping out of the boxes that the shopping cart guys got from the food closet. He got good deals and the shopping cart guys were able to buy the liquid nutrition they craved.
Nowadays they issue an atm card and your exact purchase amount at the grocery store is subtracted. They can't influence what's done with the food when you leave, but they can at least keep you from buying so much god damn gum.
I only got two or three checks. They make you jump through lots of hoops to prove that you have remained helpless and needy. I'd satisfied my curiosity and didn't care to pursue the free money any further so I let their hoops be and I was dropped. Technically the G.A. money was a loan. It's never been paid back, at least not directly. They have continued to tax me at every turn.
>>>>Go to next story>>>Jensen Brother's Creative Aquariums>>>>
We ran into Nick in line. We shot the shit and talked about our misadventures with the job market. Nick had been caught giving out all kinds free merchandise when he worked at a little convenience store. He was busted and now, if he got a paycheck money came out of it to pay back his former boss for damages. So Nick didn't bother with a paycheck. He was keeping himself busy playing music in several different bands around town traveling around the states. A little General Assistance and some food stamps would serve him fine.
I myself was partialy curious about just how free the free money was and partially responding to a feeling of entitlement. The government taxed the shit out of us all and for what. The education they offered was crap, I had no health care and they were spending most of our money on bullets and bombs which was bad enough even before you considered how much they overpayed for these instruments of destruction. So fuck 'em, they could buy me some corn flakes.
We waited around a good part of the day and I tried not to be judgemental but it sure seemed like an awful lot of the folks around me were doing this with the same additude as me. Dude with the long ass hair and black sabbath concert tee, long unkempt goatee, he wasn't looking to hard to enter the job market. I figured if they said no to me I could say "Good, I didn't deserve it anyway. You're being wise with the money for once." and if they did give it to me I could say, "Shit, you'll give my money to anyone won't you? I'm glad I'm here getting it back before that lazy ass behind me gets it."
I wish they'd spend it helping people who were disabled or uneducated. I wish they'd learn to supplement the money folks made at their shitty McJobs instead of cutting off their support if they made even half what it would take to make a decent living. I wish they'd provide healthcare and education, but I've never been one to think that welfare was what they were spending all that missing funding on and as long as I didn't see it helping anybody out I was wiling to help myself.
Such was the kind of talk we engaged in as we waited in line. Congratulating and supporting each other on our decision to get on the dole. Helping to convince each other that what we were doing was more than fine, it was dandy.
Finally, after close to two hours I met with a case worker and I attended a bullshit class on what was expected of me while I was on G.A. I didn't listen well, I was too distracted by the mans' amasing side burns. My caseworker looked like Elvis towards the end of his life, maybe even after he'd passed. He was rude and short tempered and was the total Ayn Randian stereo type of a man resenting those he's supposed to be helping. I'm sure he'd someday be on a conservative talk show saying, "Oh yes. I saw it with my own eyes. Young, perfectly healthy white boy, coming through, taking the governments money while he talked bad of that same government. Made me sick." Elvis handed me some food stamps, told me my checks would be on the way and asked if I needed any hotel vouchers for the next few nights. I told him I was fine with the stamps and the check in the mail. He handed me a bus pass and I was on my way.
The food stamps were amusing. They've done away with them now and it's easy to see why. You could be paid change less than a dollar in cash. So you'd buy some 25 cent gum with a dollar stamp. Do this once at each register in the place and you have some gum and enough change to get a bottle of something. Or just sell the food stamps at half their dollar value and get your bottles that way. Hell you could just do the household grocery shopping in exchange for your roommates taking care of the booze needs.
Even handing out food at the food closet isn't immune to corruption. I had a friend who worked at the recycling truck, issuing checks in exchange for shopping cart loads of bottles and cans. He would do all of his personal food shopping out of the boxes that the shopping cart guys got from the food closet. He got good deals and the shopping cart guys were able to buy the liquid nutrition they craved.
Nowadays they issue an atm card and your exact purchase amount at the grocery store is subtracted. They can't influence what's done with the food when you leave, but they can at least keep you from buying so much god damn gum.
I only got two or three checks. They make you jump through lots of hoops to prove that you have remained helpless and needy. I'd satisfied my curiosity and didn't care to pursue the free money any further so I let their hoops be and I was dropped. Technically the G.A. money was a loan. It's never been paid back, at least not directly. They have continued to tax me at every turn.
>>>>Go to next story>>>Jensen Brother's Creative Aquariums>>>>
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