Our intern Ryan sent us a story about going to get food stamps. Is he trying to make us feel guilty about the whole non-paying thing? It's not working…
The Human Resources center in Downtown Brooklyn is an awful, awful place and I would encourage anyone interested in receiving food benefits to reconsider. Unless you're eating Beg N Strips on a daily basis, ramen will be plenty sufficient until things get better. Honestly, it's not worth the effort.The actual waiting room is sickly-green and heated to 85 degrees, which makes everyone angry from the get-go. All the seats were taken, so that left me standing in the middle of room reading a comic book while a genuinely batshit-crazy tweaker literally danced circles around me, whistling and mumbling under his breath. When an old man accidentally touched his hat, he threatened that he was going to "start some shit." Luckily, a seat opened up in the corner.Things got worse when someone came out to see if people whose numbers hadn't been called were present in the room. Thinking that she had skipped his number, the tweaker flipped and began to shout at the poor woman, shrieking things like, "Fuck you, I ain't afraid to stab a bitch! Shit son!" The other people in the room began yelling for someone to remove the guy and I honestly thought a full-scale riot was going to break out. Instead, four police officers showed up to escort the guy, who didn't resist but resumed his low whistling, which was actually worse.So how much do I receive after four hours of waiting and dealing with that guy? $79 a month. That's a lot of Four Cheese Pizza Hot Pockets.RYAN BRADFORD
