The High Price of Security

I realize protecting our ID is important, and I appreciate all the hoops we have to jump through in order to prove we are who we say we are, but I learned the hard way that sometimes those hoops aren't lined up very well.

My Number Two son decided to go the GED route. Great, I had no problem with that. But it turns out he had to have a driver's license, permit, or state issued ID card to take the GED tests. He didn't have any of these so we went to the DMV so he could take his test. It turns out.... he didn't have enough ID to take that test either. His birth certificate, school ID, and my drivers license wasn't enough. He had to have two pieces of ID from column B or one from column A (or column X or Y or Z). I decided it would be a bit rash to sign him up for military service in order to get the ID card, and since getting a new social security card would solve all our problems we headed down to the social security office.

After waiting for close to an hour to talk to someone behind a large glass partition we found out...... HE DOESN"T HAVE ENOUGH ID TO GET A NEW SOCIAL SECURITY CARD! I am not kidding!!!!

So... we had to get a school transcipt with his full name to prove he is who he says he is. It seems odd to me that a school transcipt carries more weight than his birth certificate; they didn't even want to see that. So we head down to the school transprict headquarters, where we soon realized the error of our ways....we had registered him by his middle and last name, not his first, middle and last name. So we had to re-register him with his first name, but......WE DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH ID TO DO THAT. But....we had it at home.

So we went home, got the birth certificate, so we can get the transcript. We take the transcript (in a sealed envelope, which I just happened to ask for, and the social security clerk never said we needed, but when we gave it to him, he said it's a good thing it's sealed or he couldn't accept it!!!!!) present the transcipt, and our order for a new social security card is processed.
All of this took about two weeks of phone calls and running around as well as a toll on my sanity!

So we wait for his new social security card. When we get it, we rush over to the DMV where my son takes the permit test.... and then we come back the next day and he takes it again....then we wait a week and he takes it again and....passes! (It never occured to him to study!!!)

The next day he takes his fresh off the presses driver's permit and takes his first GED test, and passes it. Thank goodness! The reward for all his hard work, and mine is that he passed all his tests the first time he took them, and he is now done with high school.

The moral of this story is: Don't lose your child's social security card!" or "Don't have children!"