Poor Decision Making

This is just a short little story and people have lots of these kinds of stories, but this one is pretty funny. Maureen was shopping at Meijer today (which I continue to believe is the greatest store of all time) and was stuck in line behind an individual who was also making some purchases. This kind of thing makes sense because the person in front of her was at a great store like Meijer and was also at the cash register, so that is a natural time to be making purchases.

What is less natural, though, is a combination of things about this person. She was using a "bridge" card, which is government subsidized food assistance parsed out in monthly allocations, and the amount varies by an individual's circumstances. So when you put all this together, the person in front of Maureen was purchasing cigarettes and crab legs. The bridge card does not work for cigarettes, so this component of the purchase had to come out of the customer's hard-earned cash reserves. I'm not a fan of the cigarettes but I understand and appreciate that people are addicted. What I do not understand or appreciate is why this person who is on government assistance was spending $65 on crab legs. Do you know how many boxes of Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese you can buy for $65? Somewhere between 65 and 130 based on the day. We are in a recession and this person receives the equivalent of food stamps, so I am genuinely amazed by how much she must really love crab legs. Crab legs and blue spandex sweatsuits. Feed my family for a month? Screw that, I'm having two ounces of nearly impossible-to-access meat tonight.