Category Archives: Life

Don’t let your ID(s) Expire!

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More appropriately, don’t lose your Social Security card! Here is the Catch-22, Murphy’s Law, Circular Hell I am finding myself in today.

The Problem
I have a flight tomorrow at 8am and no valid forms of ID (which may or may not be a problem, they don’t mention forms of ID having to be non-expired here)

  • My licensed expired in August… eh so what? No bars care, I live in NYC and don’t drive anywhere, plus I have my passport
  • My passport just fucking expired

The Social Security Card
My Social Security card is SOMEWHERE in a giant box of shit I brought home from college at my dad’s place in Tennessee. I needed a SS card TODAY to get a NY State license to replace my expired FL license. I went to the SS Office on 48 btw 8th Ave and Broadway to apply for a replacement / get the temporary one to take to the DMV. After over an hour of chilling in the waiting room / 3 eps of Louie on the iPad, I arrived at the window only to be told that I needed a valid ID to apply for the card. I explained the situation, short of saying “go fuck yourself” she told me that none of my expired shit would work and that the only other piece of info that would work would be a medical record of some sort from a Primary Care Physician.

  • I don’t have a Primary Care Physician
  • I haven’t been to the doctor since I moved to New York

So, awesome! She suggests I go to a free clinic and have them print off the info blah blah. Thanks, God.

The DMV
I decide to go to the DMV and see if there is anything I can do there without a Social Security card. Short story even shorter, the answer was no.

Passport Renewal
I Googled “same-day passort” and a bunch of passport expeditors in Koreatown (close to where I was for the DMV) showed up. Granted, same-day Passport renewal is ~$400, but I was getting desperate. I sauntered over to Rush Passport Inc and sat down with one of their associates, and the moral of the story is… you can’t get same day service unless you are travelling internationally.

The Free Clinic
So I Google’d FREE CLINIC on my fucking phone, bewildered that this was happening to me, and sure enough, 2 blocks up = www.DrWalkin.com, on the 2nd Floor of a Duane Reade near the Empire State Building. I walked upstairs and explained my situation to the lady at the front desk.

  • You have to have Valid ID to see their doctor
  • They can’t print the form I need to show the SS Card people

That lady gave me a sheet of paper that had the address for Beth Israel Medical Center’s Walk-In Clinic.

Beth Israel Medical Center’s Walk-In Clinic
So I go to this clinic and explain to them in my best “Hey sorry to bother you / this is going to sound crazy but” tone the situation with the SS Card and the license and how one needs the other etc. They tell me what I need is a note from my Primary Care Physician (I don’t fucking have one) , and they can set me up with that and make an appointment for a PHYSICAL… TOMORROW… at 8:30am…..

Conundrum
There is quite literally nothing I can do to get a valid ID before tomorrow. If I move my flight and go to the physical > SS Card place > DMV tomorrow…. there is no guarantee I will get everything squared away and make my new flight, I mean I should be able to… but…

My expired license, expired passport, birth certificate, check book, credit card, insurance card, W-2 from last year, pay stub from last week were not enough identifuckingcation to get a replacement Social Security card.

Conclusion
There is not a goddamn thing I can do without the Social Security card. I also don’t want to move my flight. The TSA’s website says nothing about expired documents, only that the documents must have the expiration date on them. The DMV’s website has Valid / Non-expired / and specific expiration rules for documents of every kind. TSA is vague and seems like there is a way to deal with people who have NO documents, much less expired ones.

I think I am going to go to the airport and risk it at 6:30am. If they turn me away, I will rebook my flight right there then go to the physical and then go through the circular rape dungeon of the SS Card place and the DMV, and THEN, make my way BACK to LaGuardia for what I’m sure will be congested and delayed takeoff.

Kill me.