Back when Ian was an infant, I got WIC vouchers.
Because I breastfed, I was allowed the luxury of four cans of tuna packed in water (not oil) every two weeks. The cans had to be 4.4 ounces or less. Only one brand had 4 ounce cans; everything else was 5 ounces.
The shelf had a big empty space where the single cans of that brand of tuna in water should have been, so I grabbed a four-pack of the same size cans of the same brand, which actually would have cost less for the WIC program than the four individual cans. I get my peanut butter and my carrots and my plain Corn Chex in the 12.8 ounce box (and not the 15 ounce box), and went up to the counter.
Lo and behold, the 4-pack of 4.4 ounce cans was not an approved WIC item. Cue the cashier telling me it’s the wrong thing, me explaining why I brought that instead of the other, the cashier calling a manager, them looking “in the back” for a single can they can ring up four times as an override for the system, and a line of grocery store patrons lazer-filleting me with their eyes for daring to shop with a voucher.
There was no single can, nothing they could do, so I had to get everything but the tuna. Tuna was a total loss, since once you turn in a voucher anything you didn’t get is forfeit.
It was a glorious experience. Truly.
I gave up picking up the WIC vouchers soon after that. I could have kept getting them until he turned three, but it was just too much of a hassle, and the judgemental attitudes of the other customers honestly made me choose not to eat sometimes rather than deal with them.
@jca – to be fair, you said “the things”, and the question is about WIC vouchers and didn’t mention food stamps at all.