While it is true I am basically a conservative sort, my heart is not made of stone. I realize for various reasons—birth, health, luck, or other factors, people do not end up equal. There are some really unfortunate folks out there who are forced to play a bad hand, whether they dealt it to themselves or not.
We cannot ignore them in the comfort of our own middle-class world. Our humane duty is to pay up and help them along because they can’t do it on their own.
I recently checked into the hospital for a 2 to 3 day stay pursuant to a clinical trial for cancer treatment. My first roommate left after one day and I was alone; alone that is until about 3:30 a.m. when the most inconsiderate man in the world checked in from the ER. He was watching a show on his iPad and had the volume up all the way.
I was hurting and asked the nurse to find out if he had ear phones. He did, but had to be told to use them. My “jerk alert” went off. At 3:30 a.m. didn’t he realize someone might be trying to sleep?
With the sound down he and his girlfriend (he sometimes told people she was his wife, depending on circumstances) began arguing about her suspected infidelity. He had looked at the texts on her cell phone. I saw her the next day, and I’ll spare you the descriptive details, but I uncharitably wondered who in his right mind would consider a romp with her. Frightful, she was, and that’s no exaggeration.
He phoned the nurses’ station and demanded his pain meds. He knew exactly what he wanted, and what dosage. He had been down this road before. When the meds finally arrived, he slept for a few hours. After waking up, the real fun began.
A social worker from the hospital arrived to arrange for his transportation pass. He gave her a home address in El Cajon.
Because his own cell phone didn’t work, he used the wife/girlfriend’s to phone the company and learned his account was delinquent. “How can it be?” he asked. “My SSI (Supplemental Security Income) check should have gone in this morning.” When he called his financial institution they told him no money had arrived.
He called the SSI office and was told there were problems with his residency. He gave them an address in National City. Wait. Not minutes ago I heard him tell the social worker he lived in El Cajon. (I later learned that you had to live a certain number of miles away to get a transportation pass. National City was too close.)
The SSI eligibility worker said he had to personally bring in a copy of his lease. My roommate then called someone he referred to as his landlord and said he needed a lease indicating he paid $500 a month rent.
I don’t know what was said on the other end. Roomy told the person, “You don’t have to sign it. Just write the paper and my girlfriend will sign your name.” Hmm.The “landlord” phoned my roommate a while later and said he was on his own; that he wasn’t going to write the paper because my roommate paid $200 a month, not $500. “If I tell them I only pay $200 they’ll lower my check.” The landlord was not moved.
He then called the SSI guy and said he’d email SSI a copy of the lease. Apparently the worker knew my guy and said he had to bring it in personally. He told his girlfriend/wife as soon as he got out of the hospital he was going to write the lease at the library, she would sign the landlord’s name and he would take it in. Probably overcome with guilt for cheating on him, she reluctantly agreed. Her image still haunts me.
Call me suspicious, but this clown was working the system to get more money than he deserved. Rest well, America, your scammed tax dollars are helping those in need, and then some.
