The Empty Fridge: the Price of Hunger

Photo by Enrico Mantegazza on Unsplash

SNAP benefits are set to end on Saturday, November 1. I’m angry and devastated on behalf of all the families, the children, who will be affected. Those who lack compassion, decency, or understanding for the suffering this will cause, must not know what it feels like to go hungry. And if they do, maybe they’ve forgotten. Maybe they should start to remember, because I sure as hell do.

This is my story.

My father didn’t believe in things like food stamps or any kind of government assistance. He believed in God. But that winter when the last of the apples disappeared, and we finished every can of Western Family chicken noodle soup, and 99-cent Totino’s pizzas, both split four ways, my mother took God out of the equation and made a call to the Salvation Army. A few hours later, two visibly drunk men in Santa suits showed up at our door with several bags of groceries.

My sister and I tore into the paper bags, grabbed slices of bread and stuffed them into our mouths, barely chewing. We opened a canister of pulpy orange juice, which I usually hated, and took turns drinking straight from the container. We were so hungry that we didn’t notice our mother crying in the corner. She had broken multiple rules: one, she asked for assistance from the Salvation Army, which was a huge no-no for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Two, the men came dressed as Santa, an even bigger transgression as we also weren’t allowed to celebrate holidays, especially Halloween and Christmas. And third, she did it all behind our father’s back. To top it all off, one of the drunken Santas made a pass at her.

When we noticed our mother in despair, we didn’t stop to comfort her. We were hungry and couldn’t get the food into our bellies fast enough. Our mother wailed and we dug through the bags of donations, finding margarine and cheese and peanut butter. We couldn’t contain ourselves. We were animals. Hunger will do that.

During my high school history class, the one right before lunch, my stomach growled so loud kids turned and stared at me. I’d fake cough to try and cover it up. I would go to the bathroom and cry, pressing on my stomach to try to make it stop. Getting my free lunch was the highlight of my day, but I only ate half of it, saving the rest for later, because I knew there would be very little at home.

When I got married at eighteen, my husband and I got on food stamps while we tried to find our footing. We lived in a trailer we paid for in cash with my tax refund. We worked for his dad four days a week, but it wasn’t much. Back then, food stamps came in packets that resembled a checkbook of Monopoly money. Each time I stood in line, I looked down, avoiding eye contact with the cashier. If I got anything “special” like ice cream or a candy bar or chips, I could count on chastisement from someone behind me. I learned fast that if you’re poor, you fall under a different set of rules. Guilty pleasures were more than that, they were disdainful and shameful. Pure thievery. We were considered “bottom feeders.”

Within a couple of years, my husband started his own business out of pure grit. We saved up for a pressure washer and he made his own fliers, and walked around neighborhoods knocking on doors and leaving leaflets on their porches. In the last couple of years of our marriage, we bought a house and we were making a decent living.

The marriage ended after six years, and I found myself lost. Before I left the religious cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses, pursuing higher education was strictly prohibited. At twenty-five, I found myself divorced with primary custody of our two children, no community, and no education or skill set.

I waited tables five nights a week and started attending community college. I managed to stay off of food stamps for three years, until the summer before I started my bachelor’s degree. I was between jobs, waiting on my work study to start, while getting just enough in unemployment and child support to barely disqualify me from food stamps.

It was a hot August in Olympia, Washington as I stood in line at a food bank with my son and daughter, who were five and eight at the time. The whole parking lot stunk of urine. My son pinched his nose. After an hour, it was our turn to go in. I stocked up on canned and boxed food, mostly, and I grabbed one of the “special” items, an expired box of donuts.

When we got back to our apartment, my son went straight for a donut, took a bite, and immediately spit it out. The donuts were hard as rocks. They were about a week old. I dumped the box in the garbage, took a breath, and opened a generic box of blueberry muffin mix. I almost screamed when several moths flew out of the box. My son started to cry.

We went through the McDonald’s drive thru later that afternoon, ordering a few things off the dollar menu. That was the best I could do at that moment, and I imagined all of the co-op shopping, strident, future classmates I would have, judging me for buying my kids a four piece chicken nugget meal and a plain cheeseburger. I wondered how many other families had sat in parking lots of fast food chains feeling utterly defeated.

Throughout the years, I was on and off of assistance. Even when I worked full time and made minimum wage, I would often qualify for food stamps. But sometimes I wouldn’t bother. The process for getting SNAP benefits, especially back then, was humiliating and dehumanizing.

In 2007, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. At the same time, my daughter, who was in fourth grade at the time, became chronically ill. I couldn’t work and I ended up relying on my second husband, who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic, financially. Throughout all of this, I was also in a low residency MFA program that I hoped would later get me at least an adjunct position at a local community college to start. I knew I needed to get out of my situation and I found a place that provided transitional housing and a stepping stones program to help families get on their feet again.

My daughter’s illness was finally getting under control, but I developed a condition where my periods were so severe that I would wake up in pools of blood and barely be able to stand. I worked at a school part time, not being able to make it during the weeks I bled so heavily that I was almost forced to have a blood transfusion. Between serious mental and physical health issues, I struggled to make a living, and I was lucky to be in the program I had found.

Finally, after having surgery, regaining my stamina, going to therapy multiple times a week, and trying out cocktail after cocktail of medications, I was well enough to work a full time job. I still qualified for a small amount of food stamps which helped. When I got a small raise, I lost SNAP benefits again, but I felt proud of myself.

For a total of five years, I worked full time at two different indie bookstores. I loved both jobs, but I only brought home somewhere between $1200 - $1500 a month. Even with a master’s degree, I could not find work that paid much more than minimum wage.

In my final year working at the second bookstore, my rent was more than 50% of my income. I had a car payment, too. I was down to $250 - $300 a month in child support because my son turned eighteen. But I was still supporting him financially while he continued to live at home for three more years.

Even in this situation, I didn’t qualify for food stamps. It brought back all the trauma of my childhood, plus the times I struggled to put food on the table when the kids were younger. I relied on a local church for food donations, and I carefully rationed every cent I made.

Then, in 2016, my father began to die and I moved back home. I found a cheap apartment for my daughter and I, that turned out to be cockroach infested, and flooded with sewage multiple times.

I got a job as a paraeducator that only paid $1000 a month. However, while working at the school, the principal noticed that I had an MFA. She told me that I could work at the school as a teacher with a conditional teaching certificate if I enrolled in a program. She recommended me for an accelerated master’s program that allowed me to teach third grade, while getting a master’s degree in teaching in nine months, instead of two years.

Then, three years later, in 2019, I finally got my dream job: college English instructor.

It has only been in the last nine years that I’ve made any kind of living. I’m fifty years old. The best part is that now I’m in a position to buy groceries to donate to the food pantry at the college where I work, or cook something for my neighbors, or send a friend or two a little bit of money. Don’t get me wrong. I’m certainly not rolling in it. But compared to how I lived for four decades, it’s a huge honor to help out when I can.

Hunger does something to a person, not just physically, but psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. I still struggle with a scarcity mindset. So, what I ask is this: please, check in on your neighbors, your friends, anyone in your orbit who might be struggling. Do what you can. What might be pocket change to you, could be a few days worth of groceries for a family in need. We have to look out for each other, because if not us, who?