Day: April 13, 2015

Crankypantsing, Ladybusiness

Seven Limes?

Shelly

I think it’s really tone deaf and patronizing for someone as rich as Gwyneth Paltrow is play tourist with poor folks’ lives. Surely she has an imagination and some empathy and can figure out for herself what it’s like to live on food stamps, without turning poverty into a side show attraction?

But if she really wants to do this right, I have some suggestions.

1. Do this experiment for a month, at least.
2. Cook all her food on a single hot plate. No oven, no microwave, no fancy kitchen. Bonus points for not using a refrigerator.
3. Take the bus to the Aldi across town. Don’t forget to have a quarter handy for the shopping cart.
4. Take her kids with her while shopping.
5. Do her shopping after a full work day, and after picking up the kids (on the bus) at daycare/sitter/school, but before the kids have had their supper, so they are at maximum crabcake. Oh, and they want ALL THE THINGS. Which you obviously can’t afford, so you have to deal with the in-store melt-down when you have to tell your tired, hungry, cranky four year old that she’s getting oatmeal instead of the fun cereal with the toy in the box.
6. Have at least one meeting with a welfare counselor who makes her feel like she’s a worthless piece of shit.
7. Zero dollars for non-food items, because those are luxuries. Maybe she could sell plasma for money to buy toilet paper and tampons?

But seriously, seven limes? Is she having margaritas? It makes for a pretty picture, but that’s just not how poor folks shop.

(To be fair, she doesn’t actually say she will be doing the NYC Food Bank challenge.  She just posted a photo of what she believes $29 worth of groceries looks like.)