Identity Crisis

Proving my identity has been something of a theme for the last week. After discovering that I had lost my social security card, I had to go stand in line at the Brooklyn office and apply for a new card, which was straightforward enough. Then I had to get fingerprinted for a new job, which supposedly required that they see my social security card, but fortunately they forgot to ask (comforting to know that the NYDOE is so on top of things when it comes to ensuring our kids' safety). Then I had to fill out an employee verification form for the new job, which, you know, has the "one from column A or two from column B" business, but I couldn't meet those requirements because, of course, I am ss-cardless for the next two weeks and my passport has my maiden name on it (still) and my dad refuses to give me my birth certificate, insisting that he instead keep it in a fireproof lockbox in his gun room. So I turned in a copy of my old passport, marriage certificate, and a print out from the SSA office saying that they are issuing me a new card, none of which are actually valid forms of ID or in either column A or column B, but somehow they let me start working (I think they may have just been tired of the whole thing). So today, ZPJ and I truck down to the local post office to apply for new passports. Not only will it be nice to have irrefutable proof that I am who I say I am, but we are a mere 10 weeks away from our big Caribbean vacation, which will definitely require passports. Perilously close to the edge of the window in which we can apply for new ones, but still within it. There was a real hullabaloo at the post office when we got there, however. Apparently the only person in the office certified to process passport applications has been consistently deciding not to show up to work lately and so the window has been consistently closed during its posted hours. Not such a big deal for ZPJ and me- we'll just come back on Thursday- but apparently a group of women had waited for long periods of time yesterday and today after being told that the window would be open and as we left, the harried postal worker behind the bullet-proof glass was being screamed at by three angry women with thick, brooklynese accents. She's having a much worse day than I am.

Hopefully I will be able to get this all sorted out soon- I feel like such a renegade without the proper identification.