My driving license needs renewing this year, and if I want to keep on driving, I'm going to have to jump through hoops. I'm slightly irked because the hoops are not my fault. For some reason, someone at Social Security has decided I was born one month later than I actually was. On the 'status' paper they sent me, the day of my birth is correct, the year of my birth is correct, but the month is not. This is a problem because conflicting information on various government documents is now a Red Flag.
In the local newspapers, there have been reports of beleaguered people whose driving license information doesn't match Social Security's. It doesn't matter if these people are native citizens with other documentation that proves what they claim, f'rinstance birth certificates. Using a birth certificate to prove to the people at the Department of Motor Vehicles that "I wasn't born in January, I was born in February!" is not a reason to be granted a renewal on a driving license you've held for decades. If Social Security thinks you were born in January, everything else had better say you were born then, too, otherwise, no license. And don't bother arguing with the ladies at the DMV, they'll just call the cops -- the signs posted around the office say so.
Because of this bureaucratic brick wall, I need to have my Official Birthday adjusted before my driving license expires in a few months. Now, to do this, I can either mail the documents to Social Security -- originals only, no copies (notarized or not), or bring the documents to a local Social Security office. For me, a female with a married name, the required documentation would be a birth certificate, and a marriage certificate -- originals only -- or my passport. I don't like surrendering originals, even temporarily, because I was neither born nor married locally, so I'd prefer to avoid the mail-in strategy. This means I have to drive.
Yet another complication: I'm not a 'natural' driver.
I've never truly enjoyed driving. I get right and left mixed up. I get lost easily. Slick drivers who think they have the driving thing down cold because they can jackrabbit across lanes, and know how to varOOOOM-dash through red lights, don't appreciate wayward drivers cautiously trying to both keep up with traffic, and yet read street signs while being in the correct lane. I try to not to burden these drivers as much as possible (sharing the road with them is quite enough, I don't want to share insurance information, too), and so far I've avoided that. Enter, Yahoo and Google, patron saint-map-sites for the perpetually lost.
I really appreciate online maps, and I appreciate even more, satellite-image maps such as Google Earth. I use Google Earth to 'see' where I'm going before I have to go there. I also like that I can enter the departure point and the destination and be given the 'how to' in between the two points. So, in the interest of being an independent adult who doesn't need her hand held just to straighten out a governmental bureaucracy's idiotic clerical error (garbage in, garbage out), I booted up ye olde computer and went to work.
I wasn't happy with what I found: I can't get from 'here' to 'there' on roads I'd already driven. Damn. But, in order to stand on my Own Two Feet, or rather, Drive On My Own Four Wheels, I bit the bullet and generated a Word.doc, and pasted in all the pertinent information to include map screenshots of each noted change-in-driving-direction. In further emulation of The Little Engine That Could, I fired up Google Earth, 'drove' the route, and made it where I was intending to go. Woo-hoo! (the purple line leading from Home to the Social Security office was a big help)
I got 'there,' but recognized that I also needed to get 'back' (at least if I wanted to see my family again), and driving home would be another matter because right turns would be left turns -- maybe. Cloverleafs skew that change. So I clicked on "reverse directions." Whoa! The map wasn't the same, something that caused me to yell at the screen, "Waitaminnit! That's not the same route!" Still, in waiting a minnit, it looked like a simpler route. I perked up.
I pasted the addresses into Google Earth, using the Social Security office as the 'from' address, and Home as the 'to' address. This drive might be easier because I recognized the route. Most of it is the same stretch of road we use to drive to visit Eastern College Daughter (who is to be compared to her sister who was Western College Daughter). I realized that, to get to the Social Security office, all I have to do, once I get to I-70, is to turn west instead of turning east! Hey, this is a piece of cake! (she sez, not yet having made it to the Social Security office and back, but feeling more optimistic by the minute)
Still, I had to find the name of that first specific exit to take on my return, using the New and Improved Route, so I clicked on "reverse directions" to get a reversal of the New and Improved Route (so I thought). Ha! The program gave me the original route -- the hard one. Dumb program. And that makes me feel better. The gee-whiz program is 'dumb.' Luckily, though, I have the ability to (eventually) recognize that one route is superior (in terms of my driving) to the other. I may be directionally-challgenged (read: 'taking the scenic route'), but I'm still able to think, so, in this regard, and as compared to this particular program, I'm not a Total Loser. Not a bad way to start the day.
And now, I think I'll go for a drive.
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