The Problem with those who Abuse the System

I was in Walmart, yesterday. We had to pick up some health care items, and a few storage containers. As we were waiting to check out, Ash got stuck behind two women with a cart filled to the brim. The kid and I waited for her on the other side, with our own environmentally-friendly bags and pulley cart that helps us shop as we have no vehicle down here in Dayton, currently. As he and I tried to navigate around other shoppers, we had no choice but to watch these women, who were both pregnant, check out.

The dark haired girl looked around my age, which is 30. She was farther along in her pregnancy, maybe six or seven months. The blonde looked about 5-6 years younger and was four to five months pregnant with a smaller baby bump, but one nonetheless. Her purse had pictures of her other kids littered across them in T-Ball style pictures featured on buttons. I watched in amazement as she struggled to pop the top on her big Starbucks can of caffeine-filled goodness, wondering if she knew pregnant women should not be drinking such drinks. This turned to disgust as she walked around to an empty lane, while her checker rang up her goods, and threw her gum into an empty basket, rather than a trash can, since she could not bother to look past one lane and find one.

The brunette was quieter, and seemed almost friendly. Their cart was littered with junk. There were two kinds of twinkies (strawberry and chocolate), at least 30 cans of imitation pasta, particularly Chef Boyardee products and four bags of chips (not baked or all natural either), to start. Everything in their cart was processed, fully fattening and barely constituted a meal. There were no fruits, no vegetables, no juice, no meats (not lunch meat nor any other kind), no actual pasta noodles with spaghetti sauce. Everything seemed to be microwave friendly or ready to eat out of the box.

Then the blonde pulled out her Ohio Food Stamps card. She spent over $300 in Food Stamps on crap I wouldn’t feed my dog, let alone my kids. She spent $30 in non-food items, like toilet paper and a cute outfit, and for that she paid in cash. However, as she was rolling away, the checker noticed the six 24 packs hidden under her cart. To her credit, she did have a pack of water in there, as well, the healthiest thing in there. Of course, she was planning to steal her water, though she blamed the checker by telling her she thought she rang it up. We continued to stay there and wait for her as she made the brunette look through the receipt as though she really thought the pop was paid for, but none of us were stupid nor oblivious to her game.

Six containers of Mt. Dew and Dr. Pepper were rung up and then she pulled out her Food Stamps card, swiped it and was off on her merry way with her brunette friend (or sister – who knows who she was). The even funnier part (ironic perhaps) is that mid-checkout, a clueless dad let his two or three year old scream bloody murder throughout the store. As everyone turned to watch the wailing child, dad tried to muffle the kid by shoving his hand over his mouth. When that didn’t work he gave the kid what he wanted and that shut him up. Mid-scream, Blondie turns to Ash and tells her, “Well that deserves a beatin’!”

For real. We do not believe in beating our kids, but then we also believe in feeding them healthy food. We also do not believe in taking Food Stamps when we have the ability to buy our own food and get jobs to ensure the child can eat. If our kid was starving and we lost our jobs, or some other tragedy arose, we would use Food Stamps as necessary, but it was clear the blonde, at least, was a career welfare/Food Stamps recipient.

This disgusts me. It makes me see why so many say the system needs to end. Unfortunately, it is the Welfare and Food Stamps abusers who ruin it for those who truly need assistance. Really, the system does not need this kind of representation, because all the people who complain about services to help those really in need use these kinds of people as the examples for why assistance should not exist. Without assistance some people could not survive, but others just use it as an excuse to not work.

There need to be strict regulations for what can be bought with food stamps. There should be regulations for how welfare can be spent. Buying Fido a T-Bone while hardworking Americans making their own cash can seldom afford a good T-Bone is just ludicrous, but it happens. Buying necessities is one thing, but using money for drugs or things Americans cannot afford when they aren’t on welfare is an abuse of the system, and a tragedy.