Lost in the Welfare System
More than half the people were looped out of their minds. There were screaming kids running everywhere with dirty faces. No one was smiling. An old retired security officer sat at a large steel gray desk and carefully scrutinized and glared at everyone. I wondered what he had done to be assigned to this post. There were signs everywhere that said, "No drinking or eating" A few times the officer actually out of his chair and walked over to a mother who was feeding her child. "The sign lady, read the sign and take it outside."
The woman attempted to argue with him but it was a losing battle. The child wailed and the woman glared at the security officer. People weren't treated like humans in this room. They were cattle with numbers. No one gave a damn about anyone. Everyone had their own story of how they ended up in the never-ending cycle of poverty. I thought about the other welfare offices I had been in. This one wasn't that bad. It had been worse. In Los Angeles, you had to go through a metal detector to enter the welfare offices.
But in Milwaukee it was more like a Beverly Hills dental waiting room, with carpet, nice music playing and warm staff with smiles on their faces! With every welfare office across the country I vowed it would be the last. It never was. By the time I had entered this one I knew how to play the game. I knew the paperwork they needed and I came prepared. I knew what the attitude would be. I knew what to expect and what not to expect. The game was simple; you played by their rules. If you tried anything different you could lose it all and I was in no position to lose one more thing. What I could be given I desperately needed. My children needed food and their immunizations and I needed medical care.
I had received a kidney transplant and it was failing. It might have had something to do with not taking my medication. I was more willing when I was with the twin's father not to take my medication than to ever do the welfare thing and I didn't have kids then with me. I'd gone over 10 years with this kidney. Everything should be fine. Well it wasn't. By the time I
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