16. Single Mom
In 2014 I woke up on Jan. 1st in horrible pain. I ended up needing emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder. I was a single mom to 2 kids under 5 and had just moved back to my hometown after living out of state. We’d had to leave a really sh*tting living situation and had only been back about a month and I had not found a job at that point. I had a really close family friend who had been living with me before I had moved back and he ended up homeless so I bought him an $80 bus ticket and got him back to our hometown and let him stay with me for a few days. He quickly found another place to stay but we had invited him to my youngest son’s 2nd birthday, which is the 6th of Jan.
I was like 4 days out from surgery at this point and could barely make it down my stairs at this point so he offered to go and pick up the pizza and cake for my son for me. We didn’t have a huge party or anything. I was on food stamps and had cash assistance since my son’s dad was not involved at all and did not pay child support. Even so, I offered for him to get himself a small pizza to take back to the girl he was staying with since he and her kids couldn’t make it over.
So the party goes great, everyone has a good time, especially both my kids. A few days later my grandma was going to go grocery shopping for me so I go to get my card and realize it was not there. I never got it back from the guy, and I forgot he even had it since I was all doped up on pain meds from surgery. I tried calling him like 5 times and he didn’t answer, so I get onto my account online to check my balance and he took everything. I had like $600 in cash( paid my rent and bought my kids the things they needed), and then I had like $750 in food stamps. All of it was gone. He let the girl he was staying with convince him to steal my money from me. I’d only used the money to buy the bus ticket and the pizza and cake for my son since I’d been in the hospital for the first 4 days of the year and only home for 2 after that.
It is still to this day the most intentionally f*cked up thing anyone has ever done to me, mostly because it was such a huge f*ck you to my kids. Like who steals from a single mom recovering from life-saving surgery, on her kid’s birthday? Especially after I helped him! Like holy sh*t.