Red Tape

I've always heard the government of California runs like a Kafka novel, but now I'm a character in it. My god, it took 13 months to obtain a birth certificate for Bee - 13 long months! When I called a few months back to see what was taking so long, the person who answered the phone actually laughed at me. He said it takes as long as it takes, and he had no idea how long that would be because of all the layoffs they've been having due to our Govenator and state budget. Bee was almost a year old before we were even able to meet with the judge who legalized her adoption, and then we had to wait more than a year after that to get this little piece of paper. You see, we need to obtain her Social Security Number for tax purposes but cannot do so without an Official Birth Certificate. Because of this lack of documentation we lost out on obtaining "stimulus" money for her from W. I-Can't-Believe-He-Was-Our-President Bush last year, which was cruel and unusual. Although her tax I.D. number was sufficient for the IRS for her first year of life, it was not good enough to be counted for the Bush "stimulus'. But there was nothing we could do about it but wait, and wait. And then wait some more. And today, it finally came! You could say it was a good mail day, a very good one indeed. So now we need to take that precious piece of paper, along with another form of I.D., downtown to the Social Security office in order to get that nine digit number which will be assigned to her for life. Of course the only other form of I.D. that little Bee has is her health insurance card. She's too young for a driver's license, and you can't obtain a passport without a birth certificate. I remember that I didn't even need to get a S.S.N. until I got my first job at the age of fifteen, at the local car wash. But now babies need them, just in case they get jobs. I'm not really sure what Bee could do, maybe work at a toy store or something, but she wouldn't be very focused, and would probably take all the toys out of their boxes and play with them. Things surely would get lost and/or broken. And I think that there are also some child labor laws that we would have to contend with, so maybe getting Bee a job is really not such a good idea. I guess you need a S.S.N. for all of your children in order to claim them as little tax deductions. Apparently, some scofflaws used to make children up in order to have more deductions, so now actual proof is demanded of you. Of course, once again, it's the few bad seeds that have to make it more difficult for  all of the rest of us law abiding citizens. But at least we have her Official Birth Certificate. Bee is now bona fide. The Misers are so excited, I swear we would throw a party if we weren't so miserly. Happy days are here again!