"...to send back food stamps." They seemed none too happy about it.
Back
in 1984 I went to Beauty School. We moved from Logan, WV, to
Huntington, WV, so I could do this. My husband was having trouble
finding a job. He applied for food stamps. He was eligible. I was not
because I was going to school. Then he found a job at a little leather
shop in the mall. He was still eligible and I wasn't. Then he added a
job cleaning floors at the mall after they closed.
After they
reviewed our case they said not only was he eligible but I had been
eligible for the past 9 months. They back paid us 9 months of food
stamps. One day the mailman knocked on our door and asked me if there
was some kind of mistake. He showed me the envelope with the food
stamps and in the upper right hand corner was a number actually showing
how much food stamps were in the envelope.
We received 689 dollars
worth of food stamps. Talk about a Christmas present. That was sure a
boon to us! My brother found out about it and promptly offered me 50
cents on the dollar for them. I told him he was crazy. The grocery
store would give us dollar for dollar for them!
What we did do
though was because we coudn't afford Christmas presents we bought the
stuff for Bobby to make his world famous cheesecakes for Christmas. He
used to make the most deletable cheesecake. He put the fruit in the
cheesecake instead of on top of it and people loved it. (It was quite
innovative for 1984) So everybody got cheesecake for Christmas that
year.
Then I graduated from Beauty School and we both got jobs in
Galllipolis, Ohio. They sent us more food stamps. We were both working
decent jobs so I sent the food stamps back to the state via registered
mail. A few days later we got a call from a social worker. She wanted
to know why we sent them back. I explained that we got good jobs and we
didn't need them any longer. That was when she told me that we could
have kept them because they knew we were just getting started and
probably needed the money.
She offered to send them back. I
politely refused, telling her we didn't need them any longer. That was
when she told me she didn't know what she was going to do with the food
stamps, that they really didn't have a procedure for turning them back
in.
Being young and naive I told her I was sure she would figure
it out and I hung up. So I don't know what happened to the food
stamps. I hope she gave them back but who knows
She may have kept them or given them to someone else in need.
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