5.13.2010

A Rant About Bureaucracy

I was cleaning out the closet in the nursery this afternoon. I came across my hospital bag from having Little Man. (Hello! Found my lost sunglasses!) Inside were all the hospital documents. Which got me thinking... I have not received anything formal document wise for Little Man! (bad mommy moment) No birth certificate! No social security cards!

...That's when I started to get a wee bit concerned. With the twins, they just... arrived. I filled out the paperwork at the hospital, and they just showed up in the mail! I filled out the same paperwork, but have heard nothing!

... So I made some calls. And boy, have those automatic voice systems come a long way! (sarcasm!) Calling an 800 number for government agencies, so easy to navigate! And helpful! And informative! (sarcasm!)

And the lady at the health district. She was nice enough. But she was giving me information that was just... well, I wanted to yell. You have to pay twenty dollars to get an original birth certificate! You have to drive down to a shady part of town to get a birth certificate! Fan-freakin-tastic! (I never paid a dime to get the girl's birth certificates, but nice lady couldn't explain how in the world that would've happened)

... I called my Mom to vent. And boy, can my Mom really give me something new to worry about. Because if the social security cards never showed up at my house... then where did they go? (I called to make sure he has a number- we don't have to secretly move to Canada) Did the missing cards find their way into some identify thieves hands? Does my almost four month old have two mortgages and a car loan?

I asked the lady at the Social Security Admin. if they could just give him another number... just to be safe. (I mean, he hasn't really used it yet, right?) Um, no. They don't give you a new number. She told me if I had a concern about identity theft, I needed to talk to the Federal Trade Commission. Awesome. I totally have time for that.

Oh and! I can't get replacement cards until I have the birth certificate! That's just peachy.

1 comment:

  1. With both of my kids, it took a few months before I got SS cards. You can order the birth certificate online. It gets even better when they spell your kids' name wrong and you have to spend a vacation calling him the wrong name because they could not fix it sooner and had to register him on a cruise ship with that name! Haha!

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