It has come to this: People are selling containers of motor oil from their garage shelves. The treadmills they got for Christmas. The cars that they used to ferry their kids around, but can no longer afford to fill with gas.
And, for the first time in their lives, Coast Guard families are visiting local food banks to make ends meet as the government shutdown enters its 35th day. The shelves of one food bank on the waterfront have been emptied every day, within hours of the doors opening. Some people drove 90 minutes to get there.
“It’s disgraceful, to say the least,” Alisha Deltorres told me from her Woodinville home the other day. “We’re trying to figure out what bills to pay and how to keep food on the table.”