FEELING SOCIALLY SECURE

The big day arrived when I took the big step. I went to the Social Security office and applied for benefits!

My appointment was at 11:00 AM, and the pain from the dentist is much easier to take than the pain that I experienced.

Everything is automated except getting things done. I was told when I made the appointment that it would go quickly, and indeed the actual interview did, what didn’t go quickly was the wait. It took one full hour of waiting. If that wasn’t so bad, the screaming little girl who accompanied an over loud PA system that nearly blew away my deaf ears made for a very uncomfortable wait. The wait was so long, I thought my primary care physician was behind all this.

On top of everything else, there was the trip into Patchogue where the office is located. Having left the house with a reasonable idea as where the office was, when I got within ½ mile of the office. All the streets and sidewalks were being ripped up, causing me to become a little disoriented from detours, as I trudged from a parking lot to a lot of twisting and turning over a mile of trampling torn up sidewalks and streets.

There was this one Indian fellow, about his early thirties, with his wife and small daughter who were wrapped in traditional Indian clothing, with big red dots on their foreheads that accompanied Papa as he went back and forth to the guard desk to get application after application as he screwed up one after the other. Applying for a Social Security Card, holding his passport in his hand, he would take large strides back and forth, creating a very comical scene for me to amuse myself for an hour.

Of course, not everyone is looking to retire or get Social Security cards, and the waiting room was busy as some business took seconds, some a long time, and some needed to come back again. I just hope that kid isn’t there again when they have to return. I know that by the time I got out of there, I needed another shave and a Valium.