Last Wednesday March 5th, was a somber day in the hood.
The last shot of food stamp EBT money had come out way back on February 16th.
By the 16th every junky bitch is bone dry, having traded their stamps for dope day one.
By the 20th every baby’s mama is out of stamp money, their monthly diet cycle shifting from pork chops and steamed shrimp to beef-heart and chicken-part hot dogs and ramen noodles.
By the 27th even the drug dealers are out of stamps, having laid in party grub and sodas by the case.
Come the 1st the only money on the streets is in the hands of dope friends who still live with aged parents or grandparents whom they defraud of their SSI at the ghetto-mart bill pay window.
By the 5th, food market employees are starving themselves, on minimal hours, even as the hoodrats scrounge for backwash bottles, cigarette butts, and the ridges of milk chocolate left adhering to the wrapper of a hastily consumed peanut butter cup.
The scene is set at Fort Hoodrat, embattled Harm City EBT Mecca, where a skeleton crew labors away for Mister Stampenstien.
Enter Journee
8:15 am
Journee is short, pregnantly round, and maternally proud; an object of racial oppression, economic recession and entitlement-fueled aggression, with but three dollars to her name.
Journee stepped back to the deli counter and sees but one woman behind the counter. She calls over the shoulder of the elderly man before her, “Yo, are you the only bitch back here?”
The woman behind the counter responds, “I’m the only bitch that’s gonna wait on you!”
The old man moves on, and Journee demands a sample of honey ham, which she eats, finding it not up to her standards of sweetness. She then demands a sample of spiced ham, which she eats, finding it too spicy. She then demands a sample of pickle loaf which she eats, declaring it too salty. Journee then calls for a sample of smoked turkey, which she eats, declaring it too smoky.
The rude white bitch behind the counter than says, “Look hon, I’m about ta give you two slices of bread and charge you for a sandwich!”
Journee takes offense and reaches into her bag of oratory—somehow forgetting the 21 Loeb translations of Cicero she read—and blurts, “Fuck you!”
The deli clerk then counters, “No, fuck you! I work for my money. Shit, I work for your money! You’re my dependent [and rudely pointing to the sainted fetus in waiting] and you’re about to pop out another parasite!”
Journee—cussing all the while, demands a quarter pound of bologna from the ‘white bitch’ behind the counter—sliced extra goddamn fuckin’ thin—and walks away in a huff.
Journee notices the white bitch behind the bakery counter grinning and says, “Fuck you too bitch” and continues up front to grab herself that ‘cheap-ass OJ dat be on sale’.
When she gets to the OJ case by the courtesy office she notices that ‘that dyke-ass white bitch’ has not got it stocked, and speaks over the shoulder of an elderly sista to the white bitch behind the counter, “Where dat cheap-ass OJ dat be on sale?”
The courtesy bitch responded, “It’s being unloaded off the truck right now. It will be a while. She’s on the dock with the order.”
Journee responds, “Dat’s not the ansa I wanted ta hear!”
The courtesy bitch then says, “Sorry miss.”
Journee then goes off, “Fuck you, you ghetto-ass white bitch!”
She then stepped over into Roland’s register lane, and made common cause with the young brutha, “Dare a ghetto-ass white bitch in da deli, a ghetto-ass white bitch in da bakery, en dis ghetto-ass white bitch up in hea!”
Roland leans back with his hands spread wide and says, “Really? Really! Over a dollar OJ. Come on; is you serious?”
Journee throws the bologna on the belt and barks, “Fuck you too!” and righteously walks out the door, leaving Roland behind dismayed, “I don’t need this shit. I got my pregnant wife yelling at me all day every day.”
This story was based on interviews with two of the heartless employees who failed in their mission to separate Journee from her last three dollars, which walked out the door in her hand, having come oh so close to leaping into Mister Stampenstein’s bank account.
