Of course my Social Security card was left in the PODS in Arizona with all those other important papers I need to officially relocate. Once I'd gotten the birth certificate, the (first) marriage license for the name change since birth, the application for the new MN driver's license (with a much better photo, thank you), I still needed two more things. One I haven't bothered with yet. I'll have time to wait for my car's title if it's just to change my car license plate. But in order to apply to live in the (not-so-) mobile home park which the double-wide we want has our deposit on, I need to prove income, and part of that is proving not only am I me, but I have Social Security.
Note that they also need to see a bank statement to show we can afford the bills, and that would show the SS deposits. But now, I have to have the SS card. I used to carry it in my purse many years ago. Now everybody worries about the number getting out to the general public, enabling fraud of multiple kinds, so I took and put it in the home "safe place", which in turn got packed in the POds because that was a "safe place"while we were in the extended process of relocation. Of course, it's way too safe there. Not only is it over 1800 miles away, but I'd have to totally empty it out and open one of half a dozen boxes to locate it. Of course that's if I accurately labeled all the boxes where it could possibly be. There was some chaos going on at the time after all. If you've been following, you already know this. If not, this is context.
Having been through the process of securing one document to get the next document to get the next document, I brought a fat envelope of all that stuff along, in addition to the old driver's license which I still need to drive, and my only photo ID.
Showing up in person is one option. The other is trying to do it either online or over the phone. I opted for in person, at 1811 Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis. Steve chose to stay home and not get his back bounced by every pothole in kingdon come. (Wise choice. Living in Arizona for a dozen years one tends to forget how full of potholes Minnesota is. Arizona isn't. While roads are still bumpy, they're mostly the cutout grooves for water drainage after the very rare rain, in lieu of actual storm drains.)
My many years as a courier means I know where Chicago Avenue is without needing a map, and which several possible freeway exits can bring me to that address from different directions. Still, it has been a long time, and some memories were a bit hazy until I was actually on the streets again, like which pair of one-way streets, like Park and Portland, went which direction for example. Seeing them as I drove refreshed my mental map. All was not lost in my aging brain. Yet, anyway.
I had worried a bit abut parking, being short of change for a meter at the moment, but the building has a large free parking lot and I found a space quickly. Walking in puts you immediately in a security line, filtering people slowly through. Like an airport, there are guards, a place to empty all your pocket contents for hands-on inspection, and a walk-through metal detector for anything you missed. The guards are polite to those who are polite with them, so I asked one if the detector was magnetic, explained my pacemaker cannot do magnets, and was given a workaround path to be wanded. He even had me cover my pacemaker with one hand during that process just to be safe. The wand beeped in all the right places, and I collected my things after their inspection.
Next is a pair of machine where one checks in, answers a few questions the machine has, so you can be sorted by time of arrival and specific needs. Do you need a replacement card? Reason? Type in the number. Do you need your first card? Since I didn't, I have no idea what the other questions were beyond how many people in your group (they need enough chairs at the window you get called to). In starting the process you were given a bunch of choices of language so the machine already knew to assign you to a window where somebody spoke your language.
Once dispensed a ticket with your number/letter combination on it, there were lots of benches to go sit on while you waited. And waited. Once seated you could see the doors to the bathrooms, and then it was a choice between holding it for however long, or going right away and possibly loose your spot. They were very busy, and at any given time there might be five open spaces, mostly scattered in ones or twos, which could be a challenge for larger groups of, say, 4, of which several came through while I was there.
I opted for two things: people watching, and calling my daughter who happens to live 5 blocs away. Lately she mostly is working on her masters from home, so it's not a ridiculous question to find out was she there and had she some time to get together, say for lunch in an hour or more, looking at the lines. She had a couple things to finish at home, then would be walking over. I'd picked a seat facing the door so I could flag her down if she showed up before my number was called.
The people going through the office for their cards were as eclectic a group as I'd ever seen in such a (relatively) small space. There were many I identified as Somali, having worked with many of them back when they were fairly recent immigrants and working for our courier company. There was a pair who could have been Chinese or, upon reflection, more likely Hmong even though that immigration wave peaked in the early 80s if I recall correctly. I pegged the great majority of them as immigrants, new to this country and needing their first Social Security card. Most were dressed as I was, or "to blend". However some looked in African ethnic dress. Several hijabs were worn, although since the Muslim community in Minneapolis is very openly so in their dress, men and women, they could have been like me, needing a duplicate card. Skin tones varied from my pasty white to very dark brown, and everything in between. Ages ranged from under one to perhaps 90, and languages, while mostly English, were occasionally unidentifiable. Some came with interpreters, including the 90-year-old, and a group of Russian speakers. One person had to go to the desk where the guards were and somehow communicate she couldn't use the ticket machine because she didn't find her language written there. She got help, though I'm not sure how well she fared if her language wasn't represented. Perhaps it was a reading issue.
I was impressed by how well all the small children behaved, whether with a single parent or two, or even half a community of adult family. Even though it was nearing lunch time, not a one was crabby. One pair of parents had a daughter who wished to explore and they made of game of catching her before she got more than a couple feet away, lifting her up high with laughter and a hug, and setting her down again. Needless to say, that game lasted a while, but nobody was disturbed.
The line went much faster than I expected, so I was out before my daughter showed up. I called her when done, and it turned out she was in the other entrance. Oops! My bad. I forgot to tell her the proper door was on the Elliot side of the building. We met in the parking lot, had a good long hug, and went off to lunch, leaving three cars to jockey for my parking spot.
One of them finally figured out they needed to move away so I could get out, traffic could move, and at least one more parking spot opened up for somebody.
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