Poverty, Seasoned with Extra Embarrassment

I see the hateful messages on social media about how the poor clean out the stores on the first of every month, spending the tax dollars of hard working Americans on things like candy, soda and potato chips.  I see the outrage that a decent person has to wade through nasty, disgusting, welfare breeders with their whining and filthy sprogs around them, just to get to the ground beef.  Everyone sees those opinions.  They aren't kept quiet by any means.  The comments are as common as flies on a ranch in September.

So we try not to fit the welfare stereotype.  We plan a quick trip for milk and essentials to the "used food" store (a grocery outlet where much of the food is of questionable origin and /or expiration date).  We run out of milk before the first but the shame of having to run the SNAP card on that day along with all the other welfare people stops us from remedying it.  We wait, and on the evening of the second, my husband goes.  He asks if I know if we have our credit.  I tell him I assume we do, its supposed to post on the 1st.  Forty-five minutes later he calls me.

He uses that professional hushed tone of a man who is doing business in a grocery store.  There is disappointment and embarrassment in his voice, and I can feel the heat rising in my face even though I'm not there with him.  He says the card won't go through.  He asks if I know for certain if there is funding.  We both wonder if I failed a task on the paperwork hell quest.  I look for the letter.  It gives me no information.  I rip my wallet apart looking for the information card.  It has a phone number that only is manned on business days during business hours.  I take over the computer and frantically work at setting up an online account.  I tell him what I'm doing.  He tells me the decline code.  I find nothing.  Sixteen minutes later, I finally am verified to access the account and find that we've been funded.  He's about ready to put the food back when he sees the manager.  She tells him it was the state server that had crashed.

Last week, he spent time in the offices of a large corporation working on negotiations for a project.  He and his partner met with an investor for another project.  Moments before he went to the store, I had looked over his shoulder as he wrote a proposal.  And yet, here he was laid low by a computer glitch that made him feel like he was less than worthy of the milk and few groceries he needed.