It is now 12:08 am,so it is officially my 52nd birthday. It’s been a doozy of a week, that’s for sure.
My grandson brought me a carrot cake..my favorite!
It’s nice and cool out now, but a few days ago it was pretty dang warm. My teenage son was complaining that his room was hot. Since my truck driver husband was out of town and wouldn’t be able to voice his objections, I decided to switch the old (and I do mean OLD) central air conditioning on for a while. I switched it on and expected the temperature to stop dropping in the house, but it didn’t. No air was blowing out of the vents. Uh oh. Time to turn it off and open what windows we could. There are very few windows that have screens on them in our house, because a hired handyman took them off to “repair” them and never returned. That’s a story in itself, perhaps I’ll share it later.
The next morning we got the great news from the heating/cooling people that our unit is basically shot. They could do some repair work to hopefully last a bit, but even that will be five hundred bucks. Fantastic news…but my week got even better.
REAL I.D.
I’m sure most of you ( in the United States, anyway) have heard of the REAL I.D. requirements. By October of 2020, every person will need this enhanced I.D. to get on planes, in federal buildings, military bases, etc. In Kansas, the REAL I.D. is identifiable by a white star in a gold circle up in the corner (or it maybe gold star, white circle..heck I don’t know).
I completely forgot that I was notified a couple of months ago that my driver’s license would expire on my 52nd birthday. The card came in the mail, explaining the REAL ID procedure, I thought “yuck what a hassle, but I have lots of time”, and I threw the card on the kitchen counter with a bunch of junk mail.
On Wednesday, my husband called me at work. For some reason, he remembered that my license would be expiring in two days. Crap! If he hadn’t reminded me, I’d be driving around on an expired license. Memory is just ONE of the things I’ve been gradually losing with age!
For the REAL I.D, there is a checklist of stuff that a person has to bring in to prove that they are who they say they are. Ha! Why would anybody else want to say they are ME?
I looked up the website for the specific list….
Birth certificate – yep, I got that at home in my little zippered portfolio inside the file cabinet. No problem.
Documents to connect name on birth certificate with current name– Okay, I think I have my marriage certificate somewhere, but that still wouldn’t connect the name. Do I need my marriage and divorce decrees from my first marriage to make this trail of names work? Ugh. I’ll just try it and if I need more documents I’ll go to the courthouse.
Social security card– got it
Current I.D.– yep
Something official with my current name and address on it. Examples are utility bills or current bank statement.. or the little yellow renewal card they send in the mail. Well, crap! All of the utilities are in my husband’s name. I just got a bank statement in the mail, but I threw it away because I do everything online. The yellow renewal card?? I searched for it, but it was in a pile of junk mail..therefore its long gone. Ill figure it out.
That evening I went home to gather all of the things I needed. I decided I would just drop by the bank and have them print me off a bank statement.
When I unzipped the binder where I’ve kept my birth certificate for a zillion years, it wasn’t there. What??? I looked again. I looked through the entire file cabinet, thinking maybe it fell out and was loose at the bottom. Nope. Maybe I put it in the desk drawer? Nope. My birth certificate was missing.
What could I do? By the time I would order and receive a new birth certificate, my license would be expired. The website stated that a valid passport could be used in place of a birth certificate. My husband and I got passports when we went on a cruise, but that was in 2009. Ten years ago. Passports expire every ten years. I dug it out to look at the expiration date. July 2019. Yay! I’m not expired just yet!!
Example of a REAL ID. This is not an actual person.
Getting ‘Er Done
The next morning I grabbed my documents, stopped by the bank for a statement printout, and headed to the courthouse.
Much to my surprise, there was no line in the driver’s license office. I plopped all of my documents on the counter and said “I sure hope this is enough for a REAL I.D.”. The clerk looked at my items and asked for my birth certificate. “I’ve misplaced my birth certificate, but I have my passport”, I said.
Clerk stated “this is a passport card, it needs to be the passport book”. NOOOO!!!
When we got our passports ten years ago, we were told that the passport card would be just fine for us, unless we were planning on flying overseas. We weren’t, so we got the cards. We were told we could use them for anything else a passport would be used for, that it was the same thing.
I must have looked pitiful, because the clerk got out the REAL I.D. rule book( or whatever it’s called). She started reading aloud, and guess what? A passport card IS sufficient for a REAL I.D.!! Praise the Lord!! I had everything I needed to prove that I am me!!
The Picture
After almost failing my eye test ( time for a vision appt), it was time to get my picture taken.
“Take your glasses off and step in front of the blue screen”, the clerk said.
I explained that I look better in glasses and didn’t want to take my picture without them. She explained that it’s a new requirement and I had to take my glasses off.
Because I wanted to wear them, and because I’m a smart ass, I told her I wouldn’t even be able to find my way to the blue screen with my glasses off. She laughed and told me I could take them off as soon as I stood in front of the screen. Ugh, whatever.
She gave me the paper copy and told me I’d get my REAL I.D. with my little star in the corner within a couple of weeks. I don’t even look like myself without my glasses.
My advice to anyone preparing to get their REAL I.D. is simple. Do not wait until the last minute!
So, even though I need a new heating/cooling system and my husband’s paycheck was accidentally direct deposited to his old closed account, floating around in cyberspace somewhere..it’s my birthday today AND I have a REAL ID! Yippee!
