Posted on 01/06/2005 4:16:18 PM PST by nickcarraway
I didn't recognize the cellphone on caller ID but answered anyway. A man started talking about a local charity. ''Look,'' I interrupted, ''I don't have any money to give you. My husband left me. I've got two little kids, and I'm behind on the rent.''
He quickly clarified that he wasn't calling for a donation but to help. He said he was a doctor and a volunteer for an organization called Warm the Children, and I had signed up for help at my son's school. He offered to give me $80 for each of my children to buy clothes. All I had to do was meet him at Meijer -- a local, family-owned superstore -- to do the shopping. I was shoving pants onto my son Gabriel, who never wants to get dressed, so it took a minute to comprehend: Could it be true?
The doctor mentioned filling out forms. While I imagined letting a stranger pay for our clothes, Gabriel took off his pants and ran away. Did I really want a handout? Should I endure a bit of humiliation to provide some essentials for my kids? I felt as if I had no choice. Sammy, my 7-year-old, had outgrown his shoes.
The night before we were to meet, the kids were with their dad, so I went to the store to shop, making sure to stay within the allotted amount. Then, I found a manager. We put a note on the clothes and left it behind the customer-service counter. I was hoping this would expedite the process and minimize my contact with the doctor: here we go, hey, thanks, goodbye.
In the morning I dressed the kids in clean clothes. (There, I thought, we don't look poor.) On the way to Meijer, the boys jumped in puddles, soaking themselves to the waist. With mud.
The lady behind the service counter couldn't find my basket but had a good idea where it went. ''There's an Asian woman who doesn't speak English,'' she said. ''I bet she put it all back.'' I ran around the store grabbing snow boots, dress shirts and socks I chose the night before.
While we waited by the entrance, my littlest guy climbed out of the cart and started hopping up and down while watching himself on a security monitor. I knew this dance; it meant I had about 10 minutes before he had a meltdown. I thought about leaving; maybe my father would give me more money. But then I saw Sammy, who never complains, just sitting bleary-eyed in the cart, tolerating his boredom.
When the doctor arrived, he looked as kind and reassuring as he sounded on the phone. He greeted me and introduced a lanky teenager: ''This is my son, Jack.'' He didn't tell Jack my name or introduce my kids. I shook Jack's hand before he retreated a safe distance behind his father, eyeballing my kids and me. I could not imagine why the doctor brought him along.
Once we were in line, I tried to keep the kids quiet; the doctor smiled and blinked at me. I talked nonstop, peppering Jack with polite questions: ''What school do you go to? Do you play sports?'' He gazed at the ground in my general direction. Occasionally he spat out a one-word answer. This stage of growing up is so awkward. I wondered who had it worse that morning, Jack or I.
The doctor showed me the forms we had to fill out. By mistake, he also handed me a set of instructions for how to facilitate this ''encounter.'' At the top, it said: ''DO NOT OFFER TRANSPORTATION TO THE CLIENTS.'' I looked at him in disbelief and repeated it aloud. Do not offer transportation to the clients? The doctor just shrugged. I couldn't tell if he was as embarrassed as I was, or if he had any idea how hard it was to accept charity.
Our cashier didn't know how to process my forms. After the manager showed her how, I realized I'd overshot my limit, so the cashier called the manager back for an override. The line behind us had grown long with frustrated shoppers, all of whom I assumed intended to pay for their purchases. Everyone stood in an uncomfortable silence -- except my boys, who pestered me for some water and got way too close to the doctor. I fantasized about adopting a hillbilly accent and shouting, ''Now you kids shut up er Santa ain't coming!'' Finally we were done. Gabriel was clinging to me and chanting, ''I want a drink.'' The doctor and his son said goodbye and hightailed it out of there.
Back at home, a friend called. I couldn't shake the feeling that the doctor used me as an example. ''For what?'' she asked when I told her. ''I'm not even sure,'' I said. To make his son grateful? To put a face on poverty? Realistically, the doctor could have just been on his way to drop his son somewhere, but now I was angry. At my soon-to-be ex-husband. At the polarized society we live in where the working poor voted themselves into deeper poverty while the rich still coast. Despite the doctor's best intentions, I felt scrutinized -- especially with his son there to witness my inability to buy my own kids their damn socks.
''You are under an incredible amount of stress,'' my friend insisted. ''I hardly remember most of my divorce.''
With luck, neither will I.
Charmie Gholson is the host of a public-affairs radio show, ''Renegade Solutions,'' and a writer in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Interesting.
How much money did she give to moveon.org? Kerry?
I didn't "get" the Asian woman comment.
Did she point that out to show how racist the Meijer clerks are?
** $5,000 of equipment and three weeks of work) **
Her teen age kid can put 5 thousand dollars worth of gee gaws on his truck, and she's hitting up people for clothes money for him and her other waifs?
I vote to burn her at the stake...Course, I'm in TX, not Michigan.
Bump that!
It was hard to go from being qualified to get signature loans for luxury purchases to hoping to get invited to dinner at a friends house, to eat meat.
My problem, my choices, my responcibility.
Luckily for me, I grew up "poor,but proud" and so had some basic skills determening wants from basic needs.
When it got really bad, I asked for help, from friends.
Hardest thing I've ever done.
If some nice person had offered me $80.00 to shop at a department store, I would have politely declined.
I might have accepted a gift card or shopping spree at the grocery store.
I smell a lie in this article.
A "let them eat cake" by the "cake eaters" attitude.
If the author had ever been truly in real need of charitable help, she would not have spent so much type worrying about the reasoning of willing charity donor.
I agree. Plus, I got to respect anyone (else) who uses the term 'jee jaws.' LOL
That post was dated 2002, so maybe that's back when her husband was paying for her ridiculous indulgence of her son's wasteful truck-accessorizing whims, and represents a seed of the divorce.
That's funny - she's railing against the very Democrats she helped get elected.
You want to talk about rich? I heard that a friend of a friend got married to the daughter of a Democrat party bigwig, and her parents rented out the entirity of Mackinaw Island and entertained a few hundred of their closest friends including Governor Granholm. A line of horse-drawn carriages as far as the eye could see waited to bear the guests from the ceremony to the reception.
Snooty rich a$$holes? Just look at Teresa Heinz-Kerry - but not too long lest you hurt yourself. Ann Arbor is lousy with them, and they're all Democrats, and as long as the University and its leftist proclivities remain there, so will they. I hope she really likes Depot Town.
A radio show host, and a columnist...who can't pay for her kids clothing.
Old media is really on a downward slide.
She also sounds like a completely ungrateful bitch to me. Accept charity, and then whine about it?
I'd tax audit her.
Perfect summation. On the money. And funny too! :-)
So do you think she was so humbled that she had to write a column about it, (with her name on it), which will put her kids up to schoolyard taunts for the rest of their lives? She's a whining, self-obsessed nutcase if you ask me.
I would buy an ad in the local paper and advertise the fact that they don't pay people who work for them.
At my company, we always donate gift cards to these things - usally, one to the grocery store, and on to the department store.
I can't imagine going shopping with the recipient - what would be the point of that?
In other news, I suspect the auther is relating an experience from years ago, when her children were younger, since later posts discuss her son's truck.
And I agree with the author - Ann Arbor sucks.
That's a really nice thing to do.
Good for you!
She is a writer, and a commentator, and has a soon to be ex-husband (who is the father of the boys needing the clothing)...yet she is accepting $160.00 worth of charity? Does anyone else feel that she set this up just to write about it? So, did she use this Doc just for the sake of her smarmy writing? Therefore, did she negate $160.00 of charity from someone truly needy?
I don't think it was her with the cell. She didn't recognize the cell number showing up on her caller ID.
Where?
You may be right. Next time, I'll have to read more carefully.
All that notwithstanding, she came across pretty badly in the rest of the article. I wonder how the doctor who helped her would/does feel about that screed.
Really? Hooooooooo boy,that's funny. LOL
Caller ID is standard with cell phone service.
I had to reread the line a couple of times myself then it hit me...calls from cell phones coming into my landline do show up as "cellphone 123-555-1212". Then I understood.
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