On Tuesday’s visit to the food pantry, I passed a large, no longer structurally sound box of rotting oranges covered in blue mold. At the same time it was both appealing with its complimentary color aspect and unappealing in the, well, rotting food aspect. As a stream of putrid liquid ran from the bottom of the box on to the hot pavement, I backed away not wanting to know what its rising steam smelled like. The oranges in the middle seemed to be visibly changing states of matter before my eyes and adding to puddle already in the parking lot. The box was still there, baking in the sun, Thursday.
Once inside, I immediately and habitually started to scavenge through today’s finds. Overcome by a delicate, fragrant life-force, I stop in my tracks. Today there are flowers. Their exotic aroma permeates the clattering and clanking of canned goods and stale odor of nameless versions of products thudded into squeaky-wheeled carts. A line has formed, because for a moment we decide to choose fodder over food; luxury over necessity. However, once it was my turn there were no left bouquets to be offered. I didn’t realize how I missed such indulgences.
I attempted to console myself by foraging through boxes of ‘take as many as you need produce items,’ and was immediately seduced by the scent of strawberries. I knew not to get my hopes up, but still secretly crossed my fingers they would be ripe. As suspected, each of the twenty or so packages had mold or fuzz or both; I put them back, no longer fazed by such sights. An older man began inspecting the fruit and noted with a congenial smile, “These look pretty good!” He selected his prize, gently placed his find in his rusty cart, and strolled away. One man’s trash really is another man’s treasure.
I continued scouring through bags of produce that were now ballooned up with spoilage, rotten vegetables that were mostly liquid, and countless other items that should have never be offered in the first place. The standards here are subpar and many would be horrified reaching into this box of ‘food’ that should have been tossed instead. But I have gone through the routine of visiting places like this on a regular basis for months and had become desensitized to getting America’s leftovers.
See, I’ve been given: rejects, past ‘best by’s, expired, dusted off and donated from the back of your kitchen pantry; the off-brand of the off-brands, discarded, rotting, molded, not fit for consumption, unlabeled and questionable; labeled and questionable and contaminated items in my food box. Not to mention the food poisoning that goes with it- which I have had twice now. Yet here I am, again, because I get my dinner from America’s wasteland.
Here we are shameless, self-preserving, and don’t expect flowers. So I decide to add some strawberries to my cart too. Because while 40% of food is wasted in America, here we are hungry; here we do not get the opportunity to waste.
Bio
“I am the epitome of, ‘this could happen to anyone.’ In 2018, I fell and sustained an injury that required two surgical procedures on my knee. I signed all the paperwork for both my surgery and my FMLA, thinking I would be back to work before FMLA ran out. Instead, I was slow to heal, needing crutches for longer than originally quoted, and weeks became months. I was fired as soon as FMLA ended and had short-term disability as my sole form of income, which was about 50% of my former salary. Suddenly, I was jobless, unable to walk, and food insecure. I applied to any and every program I was allowed to. I was at every food bank for my monthly visit and a local soup kitchen twice a week; my experiences were subpar at best. I also began to notice the gap in services to help a population in such need: one needs reliable transportation for these services; there are pages of paperwork at times; set appointment times that might be difficult for some; unhelpful donations ( I was once given a box of 144 snickers ice cream bars?); and unfriendly workers. It was a difficult process to go through for someone who was going through a difficult time. This lasted only about a year and I couldn’t imagine living this way. I want my writing to shed light on what an experience at a food pantry is actually like, or just my typical Thursday at the time."