Thread by @annbauerwriter

I want to tell you a story about food that I've never told anyone before - because I've been ashamed, for 30+ years.

When I was 25, living in Duluth, MN, married to a helpless shapeshifting addict & mother to 2 little boys, I started some mac & cheese for dinner one night. 🧵

https://twitter.com/FrankLuntz/status/1861047551736332668

I stepped out of the kitchen for something - maybe to change the baby's diaper - and my 3-year old got up on a chair & shook the cheese powder into the boiling noodles - into the water. He thought he was hurrying them along.

I came back to find him teetering over the hot stove.

I was terrified, first, that he'd turn the scalding water over on himself. But then I saw what he'd done and I seriously lost my mind. I yelled, "No! Dammit! They're ruined now. We have no dinner."

My older son started sobbing and I whipped him off the chair before he fell.

But what I said was true. We had no dinner. It was Duluth in winter. The temperature was below zero and my erstwhile husband had the car (whether to drink or work, I never knew). That was my last box of mac & cheese - which cost almost 50 cents. I had nothing else but scraps.

Sounds fairy tale-ish, I know. But it's true. I might have had bread or crackers and peanut butter. I know we ate something that night. Nuts. A banana. I was still nursing, so at least the baby didn't go hungry.

I literally had no way to buy food. Not only was the car gone...

My husband had overdrawn our checking account. Our water and electric bills were due. I had no way of making money myself, or hiding it sufficiently. I'd asked my parents for help too many times. They kept asking why I couldn't budget better. I tried to explain.

But no one who's never lived with or loved an addict could understand. Money disappeared. There was no controlling it - or him. Guilt didn't work. Neither did screaming or nagging. One week he spent on booze, the next on pills, the following on magazines. I could never predict.

I was at the point where due to pride and frustration and fatigue, I was willing for the three of us to just starve there in our tiny house in the frozen north.

And I yelled at my 3-year-old, who was only trying to help - something for which I have never forgiven myself.

I am 58 years old, long divorced from my first husband, married to someone so cautious and conservative he consults me before getting a $35 haircut.

Yet I STILL add up every item as I go through the grocery store - I can't help it - so I'm not surprised at the point of payment.

So if @CNBC and this @FrankLuntz joker want to spread the lie that you can magically whip up a holiday meal for 10 people with $58, fine.

I'm telling you - with knowledge hard-earned of what it is to be poor and hungry and desperate and ashamed - they are truly full of shit.