Falling On Hard Times: From Luxury Dining to Public Food Pantry

Oya Obinidodo jan 2025
Thursday 
2025. Oya Obinidodo. All rights reserve

Visitin A Food Pantry 

Today I went to a food pantry. I've never really been to a food pantry myself, but I've volunteered at one before. I wanted to make some fresh dog food for my dog and didn't have the money to buy the ingredients. I thought about going to a pet pantry for the first time, but I knew that the quality of the dog food that they were giving away, was horrible. 

On one pet pantry's website, they had a picture of a Ol Roy donation. If they're giving away bags of food like Ol Roy, then I don't need it. I can afford that myself. I'm looking for brands like Farmer's Dog, Spot and Tango, Dr. Marty's, Fresh Pet, and similar fresh food brands.

I decided to buy a bag of dog food for the first time from a brand called Fromm. I would make half fresh homemade and half dry. I went to a regular food pantry and from the food pantry, I was able to get beef burgers with brisket, chicken, ham, hotdogs, shredded cheese, bakery muffins, pumpkin seeds, a bakery cake, mashed potatoes, chocolate candy, dry milk, soda, yogurt, toilet paper, and paper towels and that's about it. The dry milk can be used to make frappes or in other recipes. 

While I was at the food pantry, I saw one of my biggest opps of all time come out of there with several bags of food which was extremely disturbing. I don't think the opp saw me but I definitely saw him. It sucks to know that me and my opps are eating the same types of food. I'm supposed to have access to foods that they can't afford. Unfortunately, I don't. 

There was another food pantry that I could have attended later on tonight, but I was too embarrassed to go to more than one in one day. I still have a little bit of SNAP benefits left to last for another week.

I did have a bit of an issue when I was at the food pantry. Here is a list of the items that were fresh and the items that weren't.

Items that were fresh (in order from fresh to least fresh)

•sodas, chocolate candy, dry milk, mashed potatoes bakery muffins, bakery cake, crackers and cheese, shredded cheese, yogurt 

Items that weren't fresh 

•all frozen meat (the most important thing)

I'll keep that list in mind, the next time I go to the food pantry. I have to see if they're all the same or not but I'm guessing that they all are. This is my first time searching for food that way. I've mentioned that already. 

Food Stamp Hell

The food pantry became my backup plan after learning on a news report that there will be no more replacement funds for SNAP recipients in 2025, if benefits are stolen due to fraud. That was actually devastating news to see on TV. That means, if someone steals my benefits again, like they did last month on the 1st of last month, then I can no longer get them replaced. Then they were on there talking about how the card company needs to take better safety precautions to prevent fraud in the first place - like add chips to the cards and add a lock and unlock button to the card so people can lock and unlock the card like regular debit cards. 

I also realized that I had less Augason Farms products than I thought. I only have about 1 bucket and 4 cans left, and I've had them since the COVID-19 pandemic, when I was getting more money. That's not alot of food. Soon I open the bucket and cans, the food will be gone within months or even weeks. So actually my food situation is worse than I thought it was. 

Favorite Snack of the Week 

Hot wasabi peas
Holding a bag of hot wasabi flavored peas
2025. Oya Obinidodo. All rights reserved
 

After I left the food pantry, I went to a regular grocery store to buy frozen fruit for a mocktail, frozen peas for a homemade dog food recipe, and my current favorite snack- Hapi Wasabi Hot green peas. There's a cancer warning on the Wasabi peas but I still keep eating them. They are extremely spicy and addicting.

The Bully Free Solo Picnic this Saturday 

It's supposed to rain which is not really a problem. There are lots of picnic spots that have shelters. I'm not worried about the rain, I'm worried about the people. It's always somebody at the park. There may not be people there when I get there but they always show up at some point, making me extremely uncomfortable. I don't know if I'm going to have the picnic or not. I want a little more seclusion than that because I'm always being bullied by a bunch of weirdos. It's very scary. I don't like being near other people and I am not friendly.

A Shortage of Marijuana Due to Extreme Poverty 

As far as my weed stash goes, I'm going back to smoking vape pens. I had took about a year off and kept smoking flower, but I can't stretch the flower that long anymore so I'm going to see how long the vape pen lasts.