Wednesday, October 09, 2024

Another F-ing Driver's License

November 24, 2012


I got home from Vegas today and ran out to get my verified driver license after 3 months of trying

When I got home from Thanksgiving with my family in Las Vegas, I knew something unusual was going to happen. It did. I got my driver's license renewed and verified. If you've not read my last two blog posts you wouldn't know why I call this seemingly simple act "unusual."

Allow me to explain: On September 6, 2012, I went to exchange my old license for a new one because it was about to expire on September 19. They issued me a new one but told me it was no longer good as a federal ID. This basically means I'd need a passport to fly domestically and that I'd be subjected to higher scrutiny and more searches. This translates to more delays and possibly missed flights in my active travel life. Without reliving this whole absurd story again, I'll just tell you what I had to do to acquire this new license with the gold star in the upper right hand corner, which lets officials know I'm verified.

Over the last three months I've made at least 20 calls and have spent countless hours on the phone. I've visited the office that issues driver's licenses in Westport, Connecticut a total of four times, the Social Security Agency in Bridgeport, Connecticut twice, and the New York City Department of Vital Records in lower Manhattan once, but had to wait two weeks until it reopened after hurricane Sandy, because it's located in a part of New York that was flooded and without power.

The state where I reside decided they'd enact this law years before December 1, 2017, when it becomes national law. My life has no lack of irony in it. Look at the date my new verified license expires, a mere ten months after the law becomes valid. At that point I'll have to get Another F-ing Driver License.

 


I got my driver's license renewed and verified denoted by the gold star in the upper right corner


The driver's license they issued me a week before my last birthday that no longer allows be to board a domestic flight


My Social Security Card


One of the early forms I had to secure in this lengthy process


That will teach him not to be verified


I told you your driver license had to have a gold star on it


Thanksgiving night on the Strip in Las Vegas


Thanksgiving with my family in Las Vegas - One of my brother Dax's tattoos


An unusual Thanksgiving facts is, the woman on the right Hattie, is 84 years old


Lower New York hurricane Sandy flood waters near the NYC Department of Vital Records