court jester

I work at a drug addiction counseling center. A ton of my clients have, at one time or another, sold their food stamps. This is basically exactly what the GOP is afraid of, right? Drug addicts selling their food stamps.

I have learned, now, to ask them WHY they sold their food stamps. Here is an incomplete list of the answers:

- I need tampons, and you can’t buy them with foodstamps

- See above RE: toilet paper

- I was living in a hotel with no kitchen then. I had to buy pre-prepared food

- The homeless shelter won’t let me keep food in my locker or room, so I have to buy pre-prepared food (Yes, really)

- I had to make rent

- My sister had to make rent

- My son had to make rent

- I needed co-pays to get my medication or I’ll die

- I needed co-pays to get my medication or I’ll loose control of my mental health

But the absolute most common form of food stamp fraud I see? Giving away food stamps to other family members who get no food stamps or insufficient food stamps to feed their families. I see that every month. People glassy eyed and hungry because they gave away their food to their adult kids, their grand kids, cousins, siblings etc.

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[ID 2: A photo of 5 pieces of paper on a wooden surface. Each piece depicts a frame of the aforementioned animation.

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[ID 3: A photo of a piece of paper, depicting two versions of the painted comet. On the lower left corner are four columns of paint swatches, combining different colors.

a) i forgot how fun this is

b) it's really hard not to like, re-write for them and stick to just "hey add descriptions here, change this grammar, really cool ideas!" bc i'm an adult and not trying to talk over/railroad these kids, but i'm just so excited for their ideas!!!

c) little boys write cool stuff like "what if we went to mars but it sucked so we left, but left behind all our technology and the technology rose up and created its own society and then went to war with us for abandoning them? what if transformers had 100x the war crimes? what if the earth blew up. what if we were the robots all along?"

teacher: little girls have really rich inner lives to combat the way they're puppeted by society in real life. they'll learn to censor it out in a couple years, but it doesn't go away.

* I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

*The King in Yellow

* The Lottery

* The Masque of the Red Death

* The Monkey’s Paw

* The Most Dangerous Game

* The Nameless City

* The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

* There Will Come Soft Rains

*The Yellow Wallpaper

* The Veldt

* “you think those were fucked up? What about [X]!”

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers*

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson**

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe

The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs

The Most Dangerous Game by Richard O'Connell

The Nameless City by HP Lovecraft

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K LeGuin

There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Veldt by Ray Bradbury

Honorable Mention from the comments/reblogs:

All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury

*note: this is actually a collection of short stories and clocks in at about 72k words

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates