Going down the Social…..

It is official. I have become an American!! Two things make me say this….the first is that we went to bed (and to sleep!) at 9:30 last night which has possibly never happened in my entire life!! and the second was that I wished someone “have a nice day”….it popped out!! I couldn’t stop it!! And I think I actually meant it…

We were up at 6:30 today (okay that makes it 3 things now!) in order to get to the Social Security office early and get ahead in the queue. This was a nice thought, but wasn’t to be!! Susan (our relocation agent) was running late due to a mix up with her husband over child care so we didn’t get to the office until 9:45. I was quite tickled by the sign on the door saying handguns and mobile phones were banned!!!! There were a few people (about 10 – we’re not talking hundreds!) ahead of us, so we took our number, filled in the forms and waited…and waited…and waited…and waited some more.

There were three interview windows. One wasn’t manned at all. The other two took it in turns to interview a couple of people (for sometimes nearly an hour each) and then put up a Position Closed sign. This queue was moving r.e.a.l.l.y. s.l.o.w.l.y.! Aside from a few US people who had lost their cards it seemed to be mostly Mexican, Russian and us British who were waiting. It’s just as well that these are nations who have a genetic capacity for queuing – otherwise there would have been rioting!!! You know how on the Statue of Liberty it says something about “Give us your poor and your huddled masses” well that was the contents of that office today….

Just when we were starting to get bored the floor show arrived! This homeless guy with a grudge about the way the social security office had treated him arrived and held forth at great volume about his plight. How he’d been judged fit to handle his own money, but the Social were withholding his payments, he’d been in the military, served his country, suffered a disability, how he had no place to stay and he’d been assaulted 8 times, how they owed him $600…he was actually very eloquent, and I think we all really felt for him, he was just something of a disruption to the calm of the line! Eventually the security guard came and took him through the back to speak to someone and about half hour later he came out slightly happier, disappeared for about 10 minutes and then came back again. Someone once said to me that living here is great as long as you’re reasonably wealthy and healthy, but anyone who is not struggles in the system and I take that point.

So anyway, after the distraction (he was fine, but I did have a momentary panic about who exactly checks that you don’t have a handgun, or whether it was just an honour thing about whether you use one or not!!) the office manager comes out (it was really packed now – standing room only!) and gives us her “Welcome to Monday. We’re short-staffed” speech and said that non-US people applying had to have their Birth Certificates with them…which was a little, weeny problem for us!! Susan then interrogated her (which is the best way to describe it – it wasn’t a conversation from a Birtish perspective!) and it turned out that that was their preferred method of checking our date of birth, but passports would do. Then they had a further “discussion” about the need for my marriage certificate as I was an L2 visa holder – turns out Susan was correct and I did need one. There was a lot of “I will not repeat myself ma’am” from the office manager and I had visions of us being turfed out on our ears to come back another day!!

So after a bit (okay a lot) more waiting our numbers were finally called. I collected Susan from outside the door where she was on her phone (there was a lot of power walking at this point cos you get about 10 seconds to respond to your number before they call the next in line!) and we headed to the counter. After a brief discussion on the location of our birth certificates (Susan told them she was “representing” us which kinda implied that she might be our lawyer – she didn’t elaborate!) where we swore that they were in Britain and in no way at our house here, the woman behind the counter typed the details on the form into her computer, checked a couple of spellings with us, got us to sign the typed up form and that was that! Three hours of waiting for maybe 15 minutes at the counter while she typed information we provided…no interrogation, nothing! (Incidentally – in case you wondered - I was so relieved at finally getting out of there, that it was this lady that I told to “have a nice day”…)

When I phoned Comcast to complain (it’s SOOOO not like me to complain either, is it?!) they told me that the engineer had turned up but we were out, and we had a white door. After I politely but firmly (!!) put them right on both counts they rescheduled for Tuesday evening and refunded my connection charge of $30. They better show this time! If I don’t get broadband soon I’m going to have to print this off-line version and post it to you guys! Or come up with some other ingenious communication method…a couple of soup tins and a really long bit of string perhaps? Maybe smoke signals would be better – I could try and craft pictures of the house in the smoke as it rises!!!

(Monday 16th July)