Why should anything ever be easy? I have to head back to the food stamp agency on Tuesday. My new replenishment was scheduled to hit my account on the 12th. I wrote up a big grocery list. Nothing crazy, but stuff that I normally skip. Like, goldfish and juiceboxes. Those extra little luxuries that we normally don't get. In the world of a 2 and 4 year old, juice boxes, as opposed to juice in a cup, are like drinking champagne from waterford, rather than solo red plastic. It's all in the packaging.
At 9am on Thursday, I called the customer service number on the back of my benefits card, just to make sure. And of course, there was no replenishment. <<<sigh>>> Ok, no big deal. This is my first time that I have ever been scheduled to have a "replenishment," so maybe I don't know how it works. Maybe it means the 12th at midnight? As in, it will be available on the 13th.
So 9am Friday morning, I do the same again. No replenishment. I called every phone number I could find on my paperwork that I received last month stating that I was eligible for X amount every month, yadda yadda. Each number that I called had the same recorded message, "There is no room for your message. Please try again later." Every time I called, the same message. I logged onto the web site, and registered my account, and shot off an email questioning the delay. The next time I logged in to check for a reply, my log in information was not accepted. It's feeling like this is just NOT meant to be. I wish I had anticipated this and stocked up on a bunch of gallons of milk on my last shopping trip. Everything else is secondary. My pantry is full of pasta and pancake mix. The freezer is full of frozen pizza. We are not going to go hungry. But the boys go through milk like.... well, the way two growing boys go through milk. Fast and furious.
Thankfully, I have that gift card that Monsieur le Peen gave me, so I'm not worried that we will go without. But I was really hoping that this whole food stamp thing would work out smoothly. Just so that there'd be ONE less thing I have to worry about. So, I took out my filing box, and heaved up the entire pile of papers and envelopes related in any way to the food stamp application and approval process and read through each page with a fine tooth comb. I finally found what I was looking for. On the 3rd or4th page of the approval letter, is a note at the bottom of the page requesting additional proof of my income. It states that the letter I have from John, dated in 2010 is not valid proof of what his current support payments are. They request that I provide a new letter from John stating his current monthly contributions in order to keep my food stamp status in good standing. Super. That should be easy enough. Just ask John nicely to write up a new little letter with all his information and how he helps me and the boys. Easy peasy.
My plan is to go with a letter from me, explaining my actual situation, along with a print out from the DA's website that is prosecuting him which shows his sentencing date next month. Hopefully, this will suffice. I can't imagine that everyone that walks into that food stamp office has documentation of what they do or do not take home each month. Right? Otherwise, I will have to resort to plan B... which I'd rather not do. That being having to manufacture a letter from John. We'll see. and I'll keep you posted.
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