WoW!

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
I just spent 4 days with Katie and family. I'm very happy for them that they were able to get the family spot in the shelter here. I don't know what the issues were in dayton, if their caseworker just didn't have a clue or if it had to do with katie and M.......but they were accomplishing nothing there. Only positive thing was she has a disability case started for Alex. Six weeks and that is ALL they accomplished.

Xmas eve went well. Xmas was great. Yesterday and today were the nitemare from hades.:rollingpin:

Katie and M have ZERO parenting skills. Seriously. You know that Nanny show? She'd stroke, I'm so not kidding. Sure the 2 boys are difficult children.......but when mom and dad can't get their act together longer than 5 secs it doesn't matter if the kids are pcs or difficult children. It was WWIII over the toys the moment they woke up dec 26th until noon today when I flat out told them if it didn't stop immediately all toys would be removed to the family room and would stay there permanently. Both my voice (did not even raise it) and the expression on my face told them I meant every word. I'd had it, totally had it. Suddenly it stopped.

Two nights in row they didn't go to sleep until almost 11pm.........first night was because M wouldn't get off his fanny and blow up the air mattress. Had to use the momma voice with him to get him to move. Hitting, snapping at each other, deliberately trying to destroy each others presents........and Evan ruling the roost getting to do whatever he pleased to his sibs things with his parents condoning it. If I stepped in they back off big time, and I had to step in a LOT. I just bought those darn toys, no way am I going to sit idly by while they tear them up just to torture each other.

10pm last night M is rocking Evan like a 3 month old infant in a futile attempt to "put him to sleep". Strange but 45 mins later when that didn't work and I ordered him to bed and to shut his mouth and not get up again, the boy managed to lay there long enough to sleep. ugh Seriously? Rocking a 5 yr old like an infant????? WOW!

Weird. But I saw more effort on Katie and M's part in other areas........She was calling shelters without me even suggesting it. He was cleaning up after the kids all day long, made a real effort to be social xmas day......her too. Did notice Katie is repeating to M over and over that it's job, apartment, furnishings, ect, then maybe waaaaaaaaaaaay down the road a computer. Frustrates him but he does relent and shut up when she does that as I back her up.

I informed them that HUD will not consider them for housing if either of them have been convicted of a felony. M confessed to having been convicted of one but he carried out his sentence and the judge told him he'd wipe it from his record. (this was like 10 yrs ago) Since our shelter does a background check.....they don't allow ex felons .......judge evidently kept his word as it didn't pop up as a felony. I'd mentioned it to katie because she was getting really psyched over the hud housing here and I didn't want something like that causing her to crash and burn.

Also informed Katie on the way back from the shelter interview she'd better get kayla's glasses yesterday as cps will be called and kayla will be removed due to medical neglect. I told her our sd and daytons have called me several times over the issue already. She said she'd get right on it, then tried to give me the excuse kayla will refuse to wear them. I told her kayla will wear them or you tell kayla she will find herself living with another family. She decided suddenly kayla would wear them no matter what.

Sorry but I'm done with the soft shoe bit. I'm tell it like it is from here on out. She'll either stay and grow and learn or she'll take off and run.

Oh, and I was being uber nice on xmas and let M call his mom who is in a nursing home in texas for xmas. I even looked up the phone number for him online. This woman has not seen her child since he was at least 15 yrs old. She's not spoken to him in more than 6 yrs. I was 3 ft from the phone and could hear her excitement at her son calling her on xmas! He just barely manages a oh how you doing Mom when he starts asking about some aunt that supposedly has his money from his part of the farm left to him by his grandpa. WTH? M's grandpa died before he turned 15.....almost 30 yrs ago! On and on he went. Finally kayla pries the phone from him to talk to this stranger who was yet another grandparent she never knew she had.........

Soon as the phone call is over Kayla wants to know when they're heading to texas. Told ya she's my lil blabber mouth. lol Oh.......this has a more involved spin when I did finally find in the depths of katies journal that she hoped mother in law had left her enough money to get a house at the very least. Gimme a break. mother in law wrote her out of the will in an air tight way she'd have never been able to break in court. mother in law was a smart cookie. She did that the day after katie took off with kayla and alex all those years ago. I did not tell katie that part. But I did tell her truthfully that mother in law's money was gone before she'd been in the nursing home 2 months.

So while she may want to change on some level..........those hands are still outstretched for any handout they can hope to get.:sigh:

Tonight they're in our shelter. Katie was upset I didn't cook a full meal before they left. (they were to check in at 6pm) I said she could eat ramen or ham sandwiches. I had nothing to cook. They opted for the shelter........guess ramen and left overs isn't good enough. No sweat for me. She was even more upset when she asked when her dad could take her to go pick up their clothes from the dayton shelter. I told her we wouldn't be doing so. Shelling out 60 bucks in gas and wasting 3 hrs to pick them up to come down for the holidays and take them back was one thing, we weren't wasting neither the time nor the gas money for used clothing they were stupid enough to leave behind. Guess what? I bought the darn clothes, figure I ought to have the right to decide if I want to pick them up or not. And they all have plenty more here. ugh

Oh, and M announced I'd probably be seeing him in the mornings for coffee. Told him it would be a 5 mile walk in the cold for nothing then as I wouldn't be opening the door. I'm not a cafe or a bed and breakfast. Get over it. omg! Told Katie there are FRS services to drive them where they need to go. And the shelter will lock up their food stamp card when they get it so they can't spend it before leaving the shelter or while they're in it. LMAO!!!! Guess the grands and M will learn to eat what is set in front of them and to appreciate it instead of running out and buying a boat load of junk food. And there will be no more nights out of the shelter, not even for the kids. Shelter requires every night be spent there, period.

So yeah, did a bit of laying down the law as well as sizing things up. ugh IF katie listens, I've got my work more than cut out for me.

Did notice another thing. Katie is having major issues with her legs swelling. I don't mean just puffy, I mean swelling in a major way all the way up to the hips. No clue what the heck that is........she says she has no symptoms of kidney issues......and I don't really see anything that would cause it but it's pretty darn bad.

So guess that is the update. My house is quiet tonight and I'm thankful for it. Had to laugh though. Both Kayla and Alex asked me what I was going to do for their bdays and easter. I said I'm not doing anything. I don't "do" other holidays or bdays, that is totally up to their parents............Kayla let her parents know that before they left tonight. lol

Now to enjoy the quiet while it lasts. If M starts showing up all the time like he did when they were here before I may quickly regret their moving to our shelter.
 
T

TeDo

Guest
Good for you Hound. Way to stand your ground. Enjoy the calm, peaceful quiet. You've earned it!!
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Sounds like they will need a lot of guidance. I am glad you are going to be able to help them that way. As for M showing up in the am, just do not open the door. He may bang a while but he will eventually go away. I really hope that katie gets the medical stuff done so that the kids can get what they need so badly. As for the parenting skills, in time they will either get better or not. All you can do is make sure the rules in your home/presence are stable and consistent.

As for katie's legs, she likely needs to see a doctor. It is not a sign to take lightly - something is going on. Are there any free clinics you can take her to?
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Katie went to the ER yesterday afternoon around 12:30pm. husband picked her up at the shelter and took her, dropped her off and came home. She had another headache is what M told me when he called. I dunno if she did or not. But due to the leg swelling, when husband balked at taking her.....well, he had no say so in the matter, I told him she needed to be seen.

She was in the ER from 12:45pm until 7pm. husband came back home to wait. When she called to be picked up I asked her what they told her. She said nothing. They refused to do any tests at all, did not write her a single prescription, even for her migraines, and told her to go home. Katie sounded stunned on the phone.

That told me a lot more than it told her. Our ER draws blood on every patient who walks in the door and screens for everything under the sun just about. I know as I've done it both as a phlebotomist and as a nurse. A tox screen for drug use is standard procedure. From the staff reaction? Katie failed her tox screen and nothing else showed up in the blood tests. Once that happens hospital staff shut down. You'll get no scripts, test, and will be sent home. They deal with far too many addicts day in and day out, they don't play around. Doesn't matter if it's OTC or "street" drugs or prescriptions. They've seen people abuse them all.

Now that they've pegged her as a drug seeker..................well, let's just say she might as well never go to our ER again. She'll have to either have such obvious symptoms of illness or be close to dying before they'll believe a word that comes out of her mouth. Hoovers, but that is reality. Once I used to believe it was wrong......I still have some issues with it........but after working the ER just the short time that I did? I see the necessity of such a policy. She'll never receive any medication there that could even remotely get her high, not for any reason.

I had a long discussion with easy child last night over the leg swelling thing. She has far more experience passing medications than I do. I didn't want to jump to conclusions, so I deferred to her experience and judgment. We don't know if katie is abusing street drugs or not, but we do know she is abusing OTC medications as I've seen her do it time and again and have chewed her out for it more than once. The types she's abusing would cause the leg swelling as they're very hard on the kidneys. When she failed her tox screen at the hospital it told their staff as well as us that that is the reason for the swelling.

At our shelter she won't be buying OTC medications, as husband and I won't give her the cash to do so. Sad but we can't even trust her to buy cough medications and actually give it to the kids. Up in dayton they were using their food stamp card to buy everything but the kitchen sink.........M was bragging about some store that accepted the foodstamp card like cash. I forget it's name but if he says it again I'll be turning them in to welfare. As I said before, here the shelter locks up their food stamp card and won't let them near it until they leave to force them to save for stocking a home with groceries once they get it. They won't be using it for cash or even food while they're in our shelter.

I've noticed a pattern to the headaches. When they have no money is when they appear and won't go away. Not stress. Withdrawl from the OTC medications she can no longer buy. (and lord knows if anything else)

This shelter has them "moving" within 24 hrs to get to job services, welfare, and around town to apply for jobs. I've talked to staff there enough to know they don't play games. Katie pulled a big no no in going to the ER during this first 24 hrs. She wanted medications, but also didn't want to have to go do all those other things the shelter requires. Shelter staff is also experienced enough to know if she goes back and tells them the ER docs did nothing that she was pegged as a drug seeker. If she pulls it again.......or does one of her fake seizures (at this point I think she's faking them as I've as yet to see a single one) they're likely to be tossed out on their fannies. At our shelter they're expected to work the program or get out. No games. No excuses. It's a strict place for a shelter........hence the phone and in person interviews.
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Lisa - yeah, agree!!! A lot of places around here accept food stamps like cash. You can buy things like cigarettes with them. I don't get it.

I really hope she gets with it. But, yes, it's clear to me, too, from the ER's reaction what's going on. And headaches are a nifty little withdrawal symptom, I've heard.

Hugs, sweetie!
 

hexemaus2

Old hand
Hounddog, I gotta say, I'm darn proud of the way you handle yourself!

I've found with my difficult child 1, there's no middle ground. It's either be involved or not. I can't do the involvement without needing medications of my own to deal with the stress she heaps on, or risk going to jail for slappin' the snot out of her, so I opt for no involvement instead...for my own sanity.

My hat's off to ya for being able to maintain any contact without losing it. I know a lot of that has to do with the grands, and luckily, my granddaughter lives with my sister in law, so I don't have to stay involved with difficult child 1 to be involved with Rae. (Thank Heavens!) I can't imagine trying to maintain any sort of civil composure if I had to deal with difficult child 1 over Rae, or for any reason, really. I don't know that I'd be able to refrain from smacking her upside the back of the head every time she started with complaining, faking illness (difficult child 1's done that - then complained when no one would come get her from the ER at 11:30 at night) and all the other crapola she pulls. (difficult child 1 tests those never-hit-my-kids limits beyond human endurance sometimes. I swear, that child could make Mother Teresa want to slap her silly!)

I read your experiences with Katie, and I see my difficult child 1 in all of it. I wouldn't be able to do it. I just wouldn't. I've developed too much of an allergy to b.s. lol. So I have the utmost respect for you that you CAN and DO deal with Katie's junk, without losing it, or being tempted to shake/knock/rattle some sense into her. Sometimes, I think it's that overwhelming temptation to shake/knock/rattle some sense into difficult child 1 that makes it easier to stay uninvolved. I honestly don't know that I'd be able to listen to one more **** story or whine from her without being seriously tempted to just slap her and say "Would you just stop it already?? Do you honestly believe anyone buys into your ****?!? Just stop it! If you can't be honest then just shut up already! Everyone sees right through it, so you just look like an idiot. Just stop it!" Not that it would do any good...but the temptation is still there...so I just stay out of all of it. I commend you for being a far stronger adult than me. :)
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Abusing TC medications, esp those containing tylenol, would cause her swelling. I can see why the ER doesn't want to treat her - anything they rx will interact with what she has abused and could cause even worse problems. It is sad that she is choosing to abuse drugs, but it is what it is. I hope that having the bar for "normal" set higher than they have ever known it will spur katie and M to either improve or to get out of the way and let the kids go to family who will love and care for them!
 

flutterby

Fly away!
I'm having a hard time figuring out how you could use the foodstamp card for anything other than food. Admittedly, I've only used it at a grocery store, but everything that is paid for with foodstamps is marked next to the item on the receipt. And I've noticed in the past that junk food items, like chips or fruit roll-ups, have a different mark than "real" food, like fruits and veggies, meats, cheeses, soups, etc, so it seems to me that some kind of database is being used/checked. The cash register automatically sorts out the food items from the non-food items. Are these stores that are using old POS systems?

I wonder if they put welfare on the same card. Cause when I scan my foodstamp card I have to select "Food" or "Cash". I don't get welfare and I've only selected "Food", so I don't know what the "Cash" option is for.

Did Katie tell the ER docs about her legs swelling? Cause even if it is the result of abusing medications/drugs, they should have talked to her about that.

Totally unrelated, but when you type the word "food" and look at it for a while it looks wrong. I need sleep.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Yes, Heather, you do need sleep. But since my Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) I can look at any word long enough and it looks wrong. I depend on spell checker. lol

Somehow the store doing this has it set up that everything he scans shows up as food. I'm not sure how he managed that with the new computerized registers.........but it would have to come up as food in order to come off the food stamp card. Katie doesn't receive any sort of welfare check. She used up those funds years ago, most of them here 8 yrs ago. I don't know if the store is typing it in as food, rigged the scanners to show certain items are food when they aren't, or if they're on an old system. But I do know that M was buying cigarettes and OTC medications and several other things using his food stamp card. And if I get the name of the store doing it out of them again...........I will turn the store in for fraud.
 

hexemaus2

Old hand
With POS systems, you have to program the bar code into the system. So when a store starts stocking XYZ Product for the first time, they have to scan the bar code and tell the system what the product is. Some fancier systems are able to identify certain products with certain types of bar codes and figure out what they are, but the administrator of the system can always change those options - they have to have access to that stuff to set prices & configure sales taxes. (Many states have different sales tax rates for different types of things like groceries, clothing, non-nessecity items, etc.) Odds are, stores that accept FS benefits for nonfood items have programmed their system to classify everything as a "grocery" item...which means their readings for stock/sales are going to be way off. However, they don't have to turn that information into anyone, as far as I know. They just have to report totals as part of their Sales & Use Tax forms. At least in Georgia, there's very little they have to do in terms of reporting specific types of items they've sold. There's gasoline, tangibles, services, wholesale, retail, etc., but no break down of grocery vs. nongrocery and that sort of thing.

Private store owners are usually the ones who commit the most fraud in regards to FS. They have the most control over their POS systems. Heck, you can go to Office Depot and buy a complete POS system already set up for Quickbooks, etc. You program everything yourself from product descriptions to classifications for sales tax to pricing. You can set your system up to read a pack of cigarettes as a gallon of milk. The system doesn't know one way or the other. It just knows you told it to associate this bar code with that product, which gets that sales tax rate, and sells for this price. Heck, you don't even have to use a POS system. We have several small mom & pop grocerers and convenience-type stores here that still use the old electronic cash registers where you ring everything up by hand. When they accept FS cards, they use the same machine for those cards as they do credit cards. Without a POS system attached, you just enter the total, FS/Cash, and the customer enters their PIN. No reporting of individual items.

That kind of thing used to drive me CRAZY when I did bookkeeping for clients. I had no way of helping them determine where they were losing money if I didn't know what was brought in, what was sold, what their inventory levels were, etc. All I could do was enter totals with the information I had and tell them...you lost X amount of dollars this month, or you had an X% profit this month. I couldn't tell them you're only selling X number of loaves of bread, so drop how many you order since you don't get return credit from xyz vendor. I couldn't tell them you're selling more X beer than Y beer, so adjust your orders accordingly. Drove me batty! I hated store owners with their own POS systems or old electronic cash registers. Their bookkeeping was always a mess.
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
When I worked in a convenience store, the way it worked was you typed in the amount of the item, then had another button for the item type (food, cigs, alcohol, gas, misc). It was up to the cashier to enter it correctly, because of FS rules, cig and alcohol laws, etc. If the food was already heated it was supposed to be misc, i.e. taxed, but if they hadn't heated it first, it was food and therefore non-taxed (like those sandwiches you buy and microwave in-store), the cig and alcohol button would kick up the "enter birthdate" screen, and where I lived there was also a non-tax button for medical supplies (which were not taxable in FL but seem to be everywhere else). So if someone wanted to, they could easily ring up everything as "food non-taxable" and put it on the FS card. It was up to us to NOT do that.
 

DDD

Well-Known Member
Evidently it is not uncommon for smaller stores to ring up paper products (TP etc.) as food so the customers can get necessities that are not allowed on the card. A few allow them to buy cigarettes etc. as well. This has been true for over twenty years and everyone knows it. Via the "grapevine" I hear that you can also get cash on occasion. DDD
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
I've never found a store that would. Where are they when I am cash broke and out of TP?
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Ok....want an experts experience? Do remember I did this for the Dept of Ag undercover for a year of three...lol. This is a mom and pop store thing. You will not get a national chain store to do this. They have way too much to lose.

Have you ever been in one of those little stores where you can practically blow the dust off a can of beans and weenies? They are probably in the FS fraud business. What they do is order a minimum inventory of food to make it look like they sell food and set it on the shelves. They will allow people to buy gas, cigs, even shirts, knickknacks, and even give cash back. This was much more popular when they had paper stamps...and much harder to prove! I can remember going into the stores in raggedy -blank clothes with paper stamps and buying a couple of soda's a pack of cigs, 10 bucks of gas and leaving marked paper stamps behind so that the feds could go in and bust them.

Now, we can just watch a select few individuals cases and their card usage and when they say they spent 35 bucks at Joes Market, and then 25 other people spent the same amount on that same day? Well Joe better be able to show his inventory IN FOOD, was available to go down that day...or Joe has a real problem. We would get the individuals and the feds got Joe. The individuals would get their cases docked for say six months and have to repay the abused stamps, but Joe would lose his ability to take food stamps for 5 or 10 years. Or forever if he had been caught before.


God I miss my job!
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Janet I wish you were still on the job! I'd call you! LOL

From what I gathered this was a sort of Mom and Pop place.

I guess I'm too honest? I could never find a place that would even consider selling me anything except food ages ago when I was on food stamps. Not that I'd be dumb enough to try it. But geez.
 

flutterby

Fly away!
Apparently, everyone doesn't know it because I certainly didn't know it. But, then, I don't try to do things with my foodstamps that I shouldn't be doing. I need my foodstamps for food.

Besides foodstamp fraud, that's also sales tax fraud. There isn't tax on food in Ohio (unless you're dining in), except soda, and while foodstamps does pay for soda, it doesn't pay sales tax. So, anything they are ringing up as food that is non-food isn't being taxed.
 
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