Real ID

In the New Fake World we live in, it’s gratifying that we now get to have Real ID’s. Life in the Boomer Lane jumped on this opportunity and gathered together everything she needed to prove that she was 1. An actual humanoid with 2. An actual social security card and 3. An actual address and 4. An actual drivers license and 5. An actual passport. She put all of these except the drivers license away in an extremely safe place, where she could easily, when the correct time arrived, not know where they were.

After that, she waited for a good hair day. This took awhile and involved 1. Her usual Hair Cuttery professional going back to Iran for an extended stay and 2. A new person who used a razor to chop her hair apart and 3. Her usual Hair Cuttery person eventually returning and sort of undoing a lot of the chopped parts.

Now Husband made intermittent comments throughout the weeks, involving the terms “Real ID” and the word “prepared” and the fact that the days were going by very quickly and LBL’s drivers’ license was due to expire at the beginning of May. LBL suggested to Now Husband that he could easily go and get his own Real ID, and LBL would take care of herself. He declined, using words like “patient” and “together.”

A day then arrived when when LBL was finally ready to have her new photo taken. She washed and blew dried her hair, put on a chic but simple outfit, and applied concealer under her eyes. The final step was to not be able to find any of her paperwork, which she executed as anticipated. As she now had no social security statement, she went onto the Social Security Administration website and was extremely efficient at not being able to give them the information they needed in order to issue her a new card. Several attempts later, she was quite efficiently tossed off the website and told she could not attempt access for at least 24 hours. A personal call to Social Security confirmed to LBL that federal agencies are modern day torture chambers and should be avoided at all cost.

By then, Now Husband agreed that he should just go to the DMV himself and get his own Real ID taken care of. As luck would have it, while Now Husband was getting his Real ID, LBL had a call from her tax preparer person, telling her her paperwork was ready to be signed. Now husband came home and he and LBL were able to go there, sign their paperwork and get her 2019 social security statement back. Now Husband returned from getting his Real ID and LBL decided to then go to the DMV to get hers.

She took one more look in the mirror and assured herself that her hair was still enjoying the day. She drove to the DMV, filled with joy and anticipation. Just before entering, she was told by someone coming out, “Systems down. Nothing happening. Everyone’s leaving.”

LBL, suspicious of technology ever since receiving some kind of vaguely disturbing noise-making toy robot back in the early 50’s, wasn’t surprised. She entered the office anyway and tried to talk the person at the desk into letting her wait. The person at the desk responded by speaking very slowly, and explaining “The system is down. We can’t process anything. We can’t do anything. Please notice that no one else is here but you.”

LBL, refusing to be discouraged, especially since she was aware that at that moment, she had the best hair in the immediate vicinity. Because she has never understood why technology is a thing, she is always open to the possibility of it either disappearing or appearing at random moments. For this reason, she said she would wait anyway. She asked for an application. Reluctantly, she was given one.

LBL seated herself on one of the 60 now-vacant seats and began to fill out her application. A couple minutes into this, a guard came over and sternly explained to her that her manager had instructed her to lock the door and asked all employees go home. LBL was forced to take her incomplete application and her hair home.

Once home, she shared a great idea with Now Husband. She suggested that she could go to a different DMV office. Maybe their system would be operating. Now Husband explained to LBL that the state of Virginia had one system, and, if the system were down in one city, it would be down everywhere.

LBL considered this while she mentally calculated how long it would be before her hair would have another good day and she could try again. The good news was that the day wasn’t a waste, as, if Now Husband were to be believed, she had acquired an interesting bit of knowledge about computer systems. And there was always a slim chance that another good hair day would appear before May.