In my last post I explained I felt like buying groceries. Shit might get real. A month too early is better than an hour late. It’s due to our odd world and my reluctant place in it. I’ve reluctantly accepted people are irrational herd animals that recently lost their shit and might do so again.
My logic goes like this. Congress can’t get it’s shit together to pass a budget (which, lets face it, is mostly fiction). Therefore the government is “shut down” (which is also mostly fiction). After a month of faffing about, SNAP benefits might (or might not) pause. This will be the first time a lot of people notice the “shut down”.
Notice that DC is closed (theoretically) for a month and the first time many will notice is when they’re forced to use their own money to PopTarts. That doesn’t apply to me. I’ve never had a free PopTart. It probably doesn’t apply to you either. We both pay for our own damn food… but I digress.
It shouldn’t matter; a few day’s delay in the free Twinkie funding should be minor. Alas, after 2020 I believe nothing is guaranteed minor. Nations (not just ours but planet wide) burned society to a crisp over a fucking flu. Note that it was a human made entity; spawned partly with US funds and created in a lab in China. I mean… does it have to sound so dumb? We had to live through a fucking cartoon plot! Did they hire Lex Luthor to get the ball rolling? Did Mulder from the X-Files just want to believe? What’s next. If folks are willing to crush society over a flu what will they do when free Doritos run out?
Step back and realize the things I wrote really happened. We lived through a genuine mass psychosis. I wish I was just a spastic blogger making up shit! I can’t quite stress it enough; people got dumb and did inexplicable things. I’m going back to put the sentences in italics, because actual events (from just a few years ago) seem unbelievable. We must have the fortitude to witness and understand what we lived through. Did you know a governor can cancel your haircut appointment? Of course he can… peasant! Why not shut down churches? God is totally on board with that. RIIIIGHT. But apparently priests were. Why not close the ocean, pretend third graders will learn fractions on Zoom, and glue little arrow decals on the floor. Arrows will stop a virus? Suuuuure. Just like that crusty bandanna your neighborhood Karen wore while alone in her car. In the end, State and Local governments were totally cool with riots that destroyed various city blocks.
Once you’re irrational, when do you stop?
I don’t know if interrupting SNAP for a day or a week will cause a nation wide pants shitting tantrum. So I went to the heart of darkness… Walmart.
The thing is, I don’t like Walmart. Actually, I don’t like any box store. More precisely, I don’t like anybody. Mrs. Curmudgeon kindly & wisely does most of our shopping.
If it were up to me we’d never have food I couldn’t hunt, raise, or forage. Or maybe I’d buy a truckload of MREs once a quarter (and never take a proper dump again).
I’m rather unreasonable about it; “Want a PopTart? Tough shit. I looked all through the forest and PopTarts are out of season. Here’s a slice of whole wheat bread from my grain mill and a pine cone smeared with peanut butter out of our peanut butter reserve.”
But Mrs. Curmudgeon and I are still human we need at least some processed shitty bad health foods. Plus I bought a shitload of vegetables and stuff. No regrets. I’ve never managed to go hunting and come back with a 10 pound bag of carrots.
Mrs. Curmudgeon was otherwise occupied. She also pointed out we’ve got a lot of food already. She assumed I’d chicken out. I did too. But I didn’t. I went by myself. The Curmudgeon was unsupervised at Walmart!
Oddly, it was fine. No mayhem. No drama. I’m as surprised as you are. Of course, I’m not a complete Neandertal. And people aren’t always shit flinging spastics. By glorious chance everyone was chill. Nobody fucked around so nobody found out. I even maybe enjoyed it.
I know! You’re wondering who kidnapped me and took over the blog. But the thing is, I like living in a time of plenty. I recognize it. I’m thankful for it. Until a few years ago I’d never seen empty shelves in a grocery store in America. Until just recently, politicians hadn’t nearly beaten the goose that laid the golden egg to death. Then there were shortages. They were as predictable as the sun rising in the east; but I suppose it had to happen. Commies gotta’ commie.
Anyway that was then and this is now. Walmart was as well stocked as ever. No Bidenverse shortages. Take a moment to enjoy that. Be thankful. It’s only a few months since the press was baying about the cost of eggs. I bought 3 dozen. There were hundreds stacked. I love the land of plenty.
People were on good behavior, or at least not any weirder than usual. Some folks were in Halloween costumes, but aren’t many people in costume pretty much permanently lately? The guy with wings and the slutty witch both politely passed me in the aisle. The land whale in the electric cart seemed to know how to steer. The floor was clean. The people reasonable. How very civilized!
I did a thing mostly limited to guys. I entered with a list. I bought exactly what was on the list. And I left. No impulse buys! In and out, stay focused, eyes on the prize. The prize is to return to my homestead and never have to leave for a long time.
Driving home I thought about how paranoid I’ve always been about food. I don’t mind being broke. I’ve been broke before. I’ll probably be broke again. But food is different. If I run out of peanut butter I get fuckin’ pissed!
I grew up a certain time (Gen X) in a certain region (which I won’t mention). The way you grow up can beat certain things into you. I will always have stored food because, to me, food is better than cash. If you’ve got cash, sooner or it’s gone. A car transmission will blow, tax day will roll around, you’ll need a dentist, or the roof will leak. When you’ve got money, wolves circle at the scent. Food is better. Nobody ever wants to steal your peanut butter. Same thing with several cords of firewood and the deer in my freezer. No banker this century has seized a can of beans.
Driving home I remembered the GenX youthful experience that’s closest to SNAP. I remember Government Cheese! There was no account from which you could fund purchase of Pepsi and Pepperoni but sometimes you’d score a big-ass block of cheese. Got a block of cheese? You’re set! I had a few. Never through any repeat thing. A pile of them would show up, inexplicably, and I’d get a chance to scamper off with 50,000 calories of mismanaged tax subsidy. It always felt like a lottery win; all the cheese you need to clog your system for a month! Add a loaf of crappy bread from the “expires soon” pile and you’ve got all the grilled cheese you can stomach!
Government cheese was shit but I loved it. I fondly remember it. I was (and am) grateful for them. If I had my way, every taxpayer would get a big fat block of Government Cheese under their tree on Christmas. “A gift from Uncle Sam, don’t eat it all at once and if you do, report to the ER immediately.”
Back when when I was broke as shit that was a little greasy miracle. The “govt” peanut butter was nasty but I ate every bit. I once got road killed antelope from a food bank in Montana, I thought I was a king! You gotta’ appreciate good fortune in whatever form it takes.
I wondered if other people remembered Government Cheese? I found a hilarious video all about it. (Hat tip to Vern’s Stories.) It’s as stupid and funny as anything else DC’s done. They outlawed beer and that led directly to Reagan releasing truckloads of fondly remembered blocks of coagulation. The secret negotiations involving Pizza Hut was news to me. It’s worth your time to watch.
I loved the taste of government cheese and would pay for some right now to relive the memory.
My kids think we’ve got “too much food”. They are 14 and 16. They’ve never had less than they wanted to eat, unless it was a favorite running out after they’d already eaten two persons worth.
I plan, scheme, pray, and stack so that they hopefully never have to wonder if they’re going to eat.
Even mild food insecurity (to borrow a phrase from the left that actually makes sense when I use it) leaves lasting marks on one’s soul and psyche.
Too much food? No such thing.
nick
We got government cheese in toasted sandwiches for lunch when I was in elementary school in a middle class district in the public schools in Tulsa in the fifties. Loved them!!
Yes. Bright orange cheese covered the expired veggies from the back ally dumpster behind a small town grocery store. As a scruffy 7 yo kid, my first job was sweeping behind the store and picking up the trash. Anything left in the dumpster (or carefully placed in the dumpster in a box by what I realized later was not an old curmudgeon, but just a person helping our family out) was “earned”. Many years ago. We now figure out how to help without shaming or making others dependent on us. Thank you for the good memories.
My brother one year older than I lived on our own in a drafty 20 yr old trailer house, but hey we were out on our own. One rough winter (they were worse in the late 70’s). We survived on a loaf a bread and a 2# brick of extra sharp cheddar our mother gave us so we wouldn’t die. Good times. F Hubert
I merely note that WalMart is a civilized place as long as you get there at the correct time. After 4 AM. Before 9 AM. The WalMartians are not out and about during those hours!
I remember Gov’t cheese , my grandmother had a boatload of it and gave my family a good sized block . It was good , to me it tasted a cut above the Kraft type processed American cheese , had a hint of real cheddar to it . Wish I had some now.
My grandmother got “commodities” by dint of being an old widow on SS. The cheese was good and shared with neighbors as was all the garden veggies everyone grew.
The Great Depression left a few generations of people that had widespread knowledge of being hungry, The Great Society has now left a few generations of “people” that will die with shortages while taking down what remains of civilization.
So goes the Cheese Wheel of Time.
I liked government cheese, but damn, it didn’t like to melt.