I went to the local branch office of the Social Security Administration yesterday to apply for a replacement social security card. I have almost no idea what happened to the last one… but I have a sneaking suspicion that a certain little girl was involved.

This place is the poster-child for inefficient government bureaucracy. It made the DMV look good. It was so bad, it was a cliche of itself. A real-life specimen of a mockery of a social security office. The kind you’d find in a movie like Men In Black if that movie featured a social security office.

All I had to do was show my ID and give the nice lady, with the expression of utter, but long ago accepted, defeat, the application I’d filled out the night before. Still, it took an entire soul-sucking hour to get out of there with a receipt and a promise of a new card in two weeks.

Don’t lose your social security card. It’s not worth it.