Saturday, August 3, 2013

Waiting


What the hell was I thinking?  I must have forgotten where I came from?

Here’s what was on my to-do list for the day:

1. Go to the Social Security office and get information about applying.
2. Do a bunch of other stuff.

My to-do list should have read:

1. Go to the Social Security office and get information about applying.
2. Take a number and get in line.
3.  Read War and Peace.
4. Move up two spots in line.

I arrived at the Social Security office and there was the loooooooong line. It was so long, you’d swear Jesus himself must be at the other end passing out free $100 bills. Autographed.

Cripple Comrade Curtis was in the Social Security  line.  He said he was holding number 37. He’d been in line three hours. They were up to number 25.

So I left, feeling a bit embarrassed about my naiveté. What the hell was I thinking? I guess it’s been a long time since I’ve waited in a public service office waiting room. I should have remembered that in the waiting rooms of public service offices it’s not uncommon to see a cobweb-covered skeleton sitting in a wheelchair. Or you might see a skeleton wearing sunglasses sitting in a chair and at its feet is the skeleton of a guide dog.

Cripples spend a good part of our lives waiting in waiting rooms. A cripple’s life is like a Bataan Death Wait. It’s a test of endurance. Cripples wait on waiting lists, too. But we only wait on waiting lists for good, valuable stuff, like affordable, accessible housing. There’s no waiting list for stuff like a poke in the eye. You can step right up for that. Waiting on a waiting list is like waiting in a waiting room where you won’t get served until everyone who entered the waiting room before you dies. And you pray you don’t die first.

Here’s another thing I could have added to my to-do list on the day I went to the Social Security office:

1. Go to the Social Security office and get information about applying.
2. Take a number and get in line.
3.  Read War and Peace.
4. Move up two spots in line.
5. Become an expert on the life and times of the late U.S. Congressman Ralph Metcalfe.

 My local Social Security office is located in the federal office building named after the late U.S. Congressman Ralph Metcalfe. And on the wall outside the Social Security office is a photo essay chronicle of his life. There he is as a young man, dressed in his track and field outfit, standing next to Jesse Owens. Metcalfe won four medals sprinting in the 1932 and 1936 Olympics. There he is later, his hair dusted with white, standing next to famous 1960s politicians.

And so I bet everyone who waits in line at this Social Security office becomes an expert on the life and times of the late U.S. Congressman Ralph Metcalfe. They wander over and read. It’s a brief but merciful respite.


How could I have forgotten the crushing boredom of waiting in line? To pass time you read anything in sight. You read all the signs in the waiting room. You memorize them. It must be like being in solitary confinement. If someone drops an American Girl catalog through the slot, you read it voraciously.

3 comments:

  1. Did you try going to https://www.socialsecurity.gov/ ?

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    Replies
    1. Nonononono, NEVER trust www.socialsecurity.gov. You know what happens? First you spend 3 hours filling out their online form. Then, they require you to go to the SSA office ANYWAY to show them your ID and sign it in front of them, so you still have to wait 4 hours. Then, when you finally get up to the desk and you think it is going to take just a few more minutes until you can get the fuck outta there, they tell you that they have no record of your online form that you submitted and even have a hard copy of to prove it. So then, you have to sit there for another two hours while they fill out your paperwork online for you. But then, you find out two years later that because you trusted them to fill out your paperwork on the spot and signed it unseen (if you are blind, like me and don't want to come back the next day to do this all over again) that they did not fill it out correctly and neglected to put in a work experience that you told them about and that was on your original online hard copy. Since it does not matter to them that the error is theirs and not yours, they will take your checks away from you. Then, you have to go back and spend a day waiting and then talking them into allowing you to make $50 payments, which they reject but say you can make $150 payments for the next 5 years. Oh! And a few years later when you try to do your required yearly trustee report for your children online? They will again wait eight months to tell you that you are not in compliance and your kids checks will have to be paid back, but you straighten this out with a lot of bank statements and another daylong visit to SSA. So now your kids can eat! Whew! But, the moral is still, NEVER use www.socialsecurity.gov and expect it actually to work or save you any time or trouble whatsoever. Always just bite the bullet and haul your butt into the SSA office old school with all your paperwork already filled out in triplicate.
      Not that I am speaking from personal experience or anything.

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  2. Just finished reading your last 3 posts. Thanks so much for the good laugh. I guess I could be sort of a 10-43 C (Canadian Crip). Our social security is better but the crip lifestyle is similar.

    Example: blood work requisition in hand I go to closest clinic, waaaiiit then told requisition has expired. Go to Dr., wait wait & get another saying recurring (no expiry), go back to clinic, wait wait etc., told Dr (forgot)didn't sign. Have mailed requisition back to Dr.

    Good luck. B.

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