Food Insecurity.

[oak]

Food insecurity is bad.

(Shoutout to Beany Boo and his excellent thread for inspiring this thread!)

I experienced it while working poor circa 2008-2012.

I was working full time, and had enough to eat approximately 5.5 days/week.

Many, many were the weeks I got paid Friday at 3, had $20 to spend for food for a week, and would be broke by Friday night.

(btw, I had zero luxuries: no internet, health or dental care, vacations, cable, disposable income.)

I worked retail, and I vividly remember getting sent to a store opening (ie where we'd put a store/shelving together). The guys from corporate (who were super nice) and I (although they didn't invite me to eat with them, since I was an hourly nobody) would go to the Boston Market next door during lunch. Since they had a travel expense, their heaping plates looked like Thanksgiving, just all sorts of awesome food.

I vividly remember sitting there, watching them (without anger) as I ate two corn muffins, which was all I could afford. I was grateful for the cornbread.

I also vividly remember going out to eat with my "friends" who would eat all sorts of food, while I politely and evasively declined to order anything. One person, a true friend, Craig, wouldn't eat until he got me something.

I also vividly remember not eating for a week after losing my job and home. Couch surfing, I had no food, no money, no income. The first few days were difficult, but I got a wonderful sense of awareness and clarity. I also vividly remember looking at a Chipotle burrito a friend gave me. I was so out of it and ethereal that somewhere in my psyche said "Yes, this is food. People eat food. Food is good. You should eat this food." I did, and felt much better. (While there were some positive, interesting benefits I do not suggest not eating.)

Being objective, I underearned for a number of reasons, which lead to working poverty. Mostly because I was a really poor employee, who didn't get things done. A number of things compounded this misery, including the 2008 downturn and being surrounded by crab-pot people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality

How Things Got Better

Something snapped in me that day I saw those mountains of food at Boston Market. Intuitively, and very slowly, I became a better, faster, more competent employee. Getting ten cent raises here and there, I could eventually afford to get take out food perhaps once a month at the unimaginable price of $10. (Really! A dollar was a lot of money, something worthy to plan and strategize about.)

Lo and behold I lost that job, and my kind, generous friend dragged me to a food pantry. Oh how those older ladies were kind to me. Probably because it is quite a sight, I imagine, to see a grown man weeping, which I was. I swore I'd pay their kindness back someday, and I did.

Things really turned around when I got away from the suburbs, where I was constantly being condescended and ignored by potential employers. Once I got to the city, they decided to see if I could work as well as I said I could. I did, mostly because I never wanted to be food insecure again. It motivates me to this day.

Were I to be Food Insecure Again

I've thought alot about this, since reading Beany Boo's excellent post.

Were I to be food insecure today, I'd start taking immediate action, unlike my lackadaisical blundering into it a few years ago. I'd apply for assistance, and if necessary get a job in food service where I could earn free/reduced price food. I would do anything legal and moral in the short term.

Food insecurity is a personal crisis, a very serious matter.

For all his faults, I must give credit, just like his cousin Mr. Death, old Mr. Poverty is wholly egalitarian: he will bestow food insecurity on any person at any time. No one is completely safe from food insecurity. Many people should bite their tongues at the unkind and untrue slanders they have heaped on the working poor and food insecure. I always cringe when I hear such hurtful words, because I know the speaker is very much eligible for food insecurity themselves. While I don't wish it on anyone, I do know everyone is eligible.

Closing with a happy little vignette

Just as I was entering this interconnected hell of working poverty, underearning, and food insecurity, but already deep enough to know how bad it was, I somehow got a job as a fraternity house director. That job was hellish and pointless, but one good thing happened:

When I arrived, they left the keys to the industrial-sized fridge. Much like a child on Christmas, I opened the door and saw 12 gallons of milk. All the milk I could drink. One shelf up was all the salami I could eat, and huge jars of sliced banana peppers. Later, infinite cake and endless Salisbury Steak. So much cake.

So, if you are reading this and you are food insecure, get on your feet and start to make something happen. People who are okay with you being food insecure are bad people. Get around better people.

[Beany Boo]

Oak,

Thank you. I can't speak. Your story leaves me shaken. But truly, thank you.

[savneetkaur]

Thank you