Social Security

You know how in the movie "Big Trouble in Little China," Wang is always talking about the different kinds of Chinese hells? There's the Hell of the Horny Dragon, the Hell of the Upside-down Sinners, and the Hell of Being Cut to Pieces, just to name of few.

Well, today I discovered a new one: the hell of obtaining a replacement social security card.

First of all, if anyone reading this has managed to obtain a NY State driver's license without a social security card, please let me know! The DMV website says I need to bring one when I apply, and I haven't been able to get through to a human on the telephone to see if there are exceptions.

Honestly, I can't remember the last time I thought about a social security card. I memorized the number and that's it. How this document will satisfy the state of New York that I am worthy of a driver's license is beyond me.

I don't drive, but I really want to get a NY license because for the first time I live in a neighborhood with what looks like a decent municipal pool--for those who can prove that they are NY State residents.

So I acquire and fill out the form for a replacement card, bring the necessary documentation proving where I was born and who I am, and I take the Q train over to the Fort Greene/Borough Hall neighborhood in Brooklyn where the SSA office is located.

It's difficult to accurately describe a chamber of hell, but it was something like this:

Imagine you're at JFK waiting to go through a security checkpoint. Except nobody has luggage. And the line's not moving. Actually, that's not quite true. The line did creep forward whenever one of two things happened:

1. Someone would get fed up with waiting and leave.
2. One of the security guards would move through the line, taking people by the arm and prodding them until they stood closer together. He did this whenever the line grew past the cordoned-off area and threatened to snake out the front door.

I must admit, when I first went in and saw such a quantity and variety of people, I did have a brief moment of "Oh, isn't it great to see the melting pot in action! Look at all these immigrants from far and wide who have made America their home!"

Unfortunately, the enchantment was over in the time it takes to say "fucking government offices."

I gave it a good twenty minutes, and would have been willing to wait longer if there had been any evidence of progress. But in those twenty minutes, out of the two hundred or so people waiting, a total of two were allowed to pass through the metal detector, collect their personal items from the X-ray machine, and proceed through an unmarked door, which I can only presume leads to an elevator bank. I'd be willing to wager quite a sum on equally long (if not longer) lines once you reach that fabled Sixth Floor where the actual business of applying for a card takes place.

I hope when I left the line that it brought some small measure of joy to the people waiting behind me. I'm not going back until I am fully prepared to Get It Over With. That means: a full ipod battery, a very good, very long book, an empty bladder, and preferably some shitty weather outside so I won't be tempted to give up again.

It's 2009 already; where's the futuristic stuff? I want to walk up to a nifty, shiny computerized kiosk, scan my thumbprint or my retina or something, and hear a pleasant robotic voice say, "You have been verified as Tamara Hellgren. Please take your new social security card and have a nice day." But if anything, dealing with government administration is like going back in time about fifty years. Which is probably the last time they vacuumed the carpet in there.

The part that really kills me is that by the time I qualify for social security, there won't be anything left in the coffers for poor old geezer Tamara. It's somehow doubly insulting that we have to fill out paper forms and stand around forever in old, ugly, fetid buildings, only to acquire a card which is effectively worth bunkus to anyone currently under the age of, say, 59.

But to me, for now, that card means a license, and a license means swimming pool access. As the old Chinese proverb says, "You must wade through fields of shit before you reach the ocean." Or something like that. For now I'll settle for washing off that penned-in smell.