I know. It's January. You've already given all of your canned goods, boxed foods, and bags of beans and rice in the food drives last year. So I should save the lesson for later, right?
Nope. This is the PERFECT time for me to remind you that cleaning out your cupboards once or twice a year isn't charitable giving. At best, it costs charitable organizations a LOT of money in resources and at worst you're probably making someone sick OR even killing someone.
Yes. I said killing someone.
Before I'm too much of a Debbie Downer, let me just share some of my personal experiences.
10 years ago, I was in a similar position that I'm in now. Broke, single parent, with no job and little money coming in. A local church donated some food and toys for my son, and I was absolutely grateful to be receiving such a gift. However, I thought some of the items included were questionable. The box of toiletries contained a sample size toothpaste, 2 toothbrushes, a travel size mouthwash....and 30 tubes of genital wart cream.
No, it wasn't an accident. Many of my neighbors who received the boxes got similar. And the ones who didn't get genital wart cream were married.
Fast forward to this winter. Joe left, I've got little money coming in, and I was given help by the school doing a Christmas basket. So, thinking little or nothing of it, I just put the food in my pantry.
Well, tonight, I went to make spaghetti, and was going to use one of the cans of tomato paste I'd gotten. I didn't look at the expiration date, since the can wasn't rusty or bulging, so it should be fine, right?
It exploded. A tiny explosion, but still an explosion. And the rotten tomato paste smell is pungent. Then I saw the expiration date: June 2014. 2 1/2 years ago. And I KNOW this was donated as I haven't bought tomato paste in months and I was excited to have some around to make the sauce a little more tomatoey. So, I went through other cans. Some expired as far back as 2012. Nothing wrong with the can, nothing wrong with the label.
Canning doesn't preserve food indefinitely. Neither does freezing. But, this isn't what I wanted to address.
It's "giving". I use quotation marks because it's not really giving if all you're doing is making your life a little easier.
Someone wasted their time handling and boxing those canned goods. And please don't say "but that was good food!" NO, IT WASN'T. If your food is expired, THROW IT AWAY. Do not donate it.
First and foremost, it's fucking expired. Seriously.
Second, you're telling people in need that their actual lives don't matter to you. "Silly peasants, eat the scraps from my plate, and LEARN TO LIKE IT!"
Third, you're putting people's lives at risk.
If my 6 year old had been helping me by opening the cans, I might not have known. See, he's autistic, and his communication is usually relegated to his PODD/PECS books, using Green Eggs and Ham to communicate, or just shrieking. If something happens when he's helping, there could be an "uh-oh", or there could be silence.
If it had been a little louder, or more hectic in here, I might not have heard the pop and just assumed I'd made the mess while opening the can and delegating one of any number of situations that can arise with 2 young kids and an infant.
But, I shouldn't have to actually explain why giving expired food to your food bank/food drive is bad. Giving expired food to people is literally giving garbage to people. If you don't have canned goods to give, I don't know of a single food-collecting group that won't take gift cards or money donations. $10 will go farther, anyway. They have volunteers and employees that know how to get more money for the dollar than you ever could.
When you do give, and if you insist on giving tangible product, do so with real humility. Give because it's the right thing to do, not to get a pizza party or whatever.
But, please, do give. I'm not saying this as a recipient; I'm saying this as a long-time volunteer. I've seen people mistreated for not accepting gifts "the right way". For not being gracious enough for a gift that they couldn't possibly utilize. For daring to keep their pet with them. For being seemingly able-bodied.
For needing help.
If you're going to give with a caveat, start a bank and give loans.
But, if you are truly feeling charitable, give with no strings, no rules, and without needing to be in charge. Because if there are strings, if there are caveats...it is no longer a gift.
Saturday, January 7, 2017
Friday, December 30, 2016
Tools sometimes have more than one use
I was born with a hole in my heart.
Obviously, it's been fixed, since I'm now 36 and not typing this from "the other side", but, as a kid, I always had much more interesting visits to the doctor than any other kid I went to school with. I had my heart repaired at the age of 4 (just before turning 5) in 1985. And, as anyone with major surgery will tell you...part of regular checkups includes making sure the organ you just fixed stays that way.
After every checkup, I was sent to Primary Children's Hospital in SLC, UT, for a follow-up ultrasound on my heart. At the age of 6, I had no idea that ultrasounds were used for anything other than looking at hearts (mine, specifically, because at 6 the world revolved around me. I don't know why I quantified that. The world still revolves around me.) Later that year, I was introduced to the prenatal ultrasound, and, through that, my kid sister. So, I now new that there was more than one use for ultrasound machines, but never put that information to use because...well, what little kid does?
Fast forward to 1998. I was still getting ultrasounds on my heart, and was really excited that I got to have one the next day. I gushed to my friends, who were also excited. One, in particular, because she had just seen her MOM have an ultrasound. Super neat, right?
So, the next day, I come into school around noonish. Which was normal for a day where I visited PCH. My friends were whispering and looking at me, then going back to whispering. After recess, I got called into the office.
The rumor mill had been working on overdrive. In the matter of one night, I had gone from a slightly atypical 8 year old, excited for a morning trip to SLC to the rumored school tramp, pregnant at 8 years old.
Obviously, I wasn't ACTUALLY pregnant. But, here I was, in the principal's office, with them ready to trigger a CPS investigation based on the playground rumors of some little girls who obviously had no idea that ultrasounds can be used for things that have nothing to do with looking at alien babies in uteruses.
So, I sat there, with 3 teachers (all of whom knew my mother, who wasn't answering the phone at home because she had stopped at the grocery store on her way home) and the principal staring at me, asking why I was telling people I was pregnant. I had NO idea what they were going on about, and I defended myself in the best way I could. Roughly an hour later, my mother finally got home and checked the answering machine, and called in, absolutely frantic. The message was apparently gruff, and was just "we need to talk about your daughter". I was either injured, dead, or had set the school on fire, apparently. After a 2 minute interrogation about the goings-on in our household, the question was finally asked: "Well, if she's not sexually active, why is she going around telling people she'd had an ultrasound this morning?"
I am positive that this was the first time in my life I'd ever encountered "pin-drop" silence before. Following was the only time I'd ever heard my mother absolutely let loose on an authority figure where I'd seen it. I'm pretty sure the term "intellectually lazy putz" was heard by more than just me on the other end of the phone.
The teachers apologized. The principal looked flustered. My mom came and picked me up early. And the girl who'd started the rumor never talked to me again, and walked away whenever I came by. Well, until I moved back when I was 19, and she told me that she had been embarrassed in front of the class by her teacher, who told her what the ultrasound was for, and then put her in "the seat" (the desk that is attached to the teacher's desk, usually used for the naughty or misbehaving kids) and taunted her. She eventually shook her actions and reputation as a busy body and rumor-monger, and I think that was my last year at Central Elementary before we moved to Escalante.
The moral of the story is...don't spread rumors, and don't assume the worst.
Obviously, it's been fixed, since I'm now 36 and not typing this from "the other side", but, as a kid, I always had much more interesting visits to the doctor than any other kid I went to school with. I had my heart repaired at the age of 4 (just before turning 5) in 1985. And, as anyone with major surgery will tell you...part of regular checkups includes making sure the organ you just fixed stays that way.
After every checkup, I was sent to Primary Children's Hospital in SLC, UT, for a follow-up ultrasound on my heart. At the age of 6, I had no idea that ultrasounds were used for anything other than looking at hearts (mine, specifically, because at 6 the world revolved around me. I don't know why I quantified that. The world still revolves around me.) Later that year, I was introduced to the prenatal ultrasound, and, through that, my kid sister. So, I now new that there was more than one use for ultrasound machines, but never put that information to use because...well, what little kid does?
Fast forward to 1998. I was still getting ultrasounds on my heart, and was really excited that I got to have one the next day. I gushed to my friends, who were also excited. One, in particular, because she had just seen her MOM have an ultrasound. Super neat, right?
So, the next day, I come into school around noonish. Which was normal for a day where I visited PCH. My friends were whispering and looking at me, then going back to whispering. After recess, I got called into the office.
The rumor mill had been working on overdrive. In the matter of one night, I had gone from a slightly atypical 8 year old, excited for a morning trip to SLC to the rumored school tramp, pregnant at 8 years old.
Obviously, I wasn't ACTUALLY pregnant. But, here I was, in the principal's office, with them ready to trigger a CPS investigation based on the playground rumors of some little girls who obviously had no idea that ultrasounds can be used for things that have nothing to do with looking at alien babies in uteruses.
So, I sat there, with 3 teachers (all of whom knew my mother, who wasn't answering the phone at home because she had stopped at the grocery store on her way home) and the principal staring at me, asking why I was telling people I was pregnant. I had NO idea what they were going on about, and I defended myself in the best way I could. Roughly an hour later, my mother finally got home and checked the answering machine, and called in, absolutely frantic. The message was apparently gruff, and was just "we need to talk about your daughter". I was either injured, dead, or had set the school on fire, apparently. After a 2 minute interrogation about the goings-on in our household, the question was finally asked: "Well, if she's not sexually active, why is she going around telling people she'd had an ultrasound this morning?"
I am positive that this was the first time in my life I'd ever encountered "pin-drop" silence before. Following was the only time I'd ever heard my mother absolutely let loose on an authority figure where I'd seen it. I'm pretty sure the term "intellectually lazy putz" was heard by more than just me on the other end of the phone.
The teachers apologized. The principal looked flustered. My mom came and picked me up early. And the girl who'd started the rumor never talked to me again, and walked away whenever I came by. Well, until I moved back when I was 19, and she told me that she had been embarrassed in front of the class by her teacher, who told her what the ultrasound was for, and then put her in "the seat" (the desk that is attached to the teacher's desk, usually used for the naughty or misbehaving kids) and taunted her. She eventually shook her actions and reputation as a busy body and rumor-monger, and I think that was my last year at Central Elementary before we moved to Escalante.
The moral of the story is...don't spread rumors, and don't assume the worst.
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