March 15, 2019: REAL ID? More like fake news
Facebook Friends, The Jourmudgeon believes it is his patriotic duty to inform you of the latest boondoggle from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. It is called the REAL ID driver’s license. The Jourmudgeon learned of this REAL ID driver’s license in a chirpy email from DMV reminding The Jourmudgeon that it was time to renew his Virginia driver’s license. The Jourmudgeon could always obtain another plain old-fashioned Virginia driver’s license, of course, the DMV explained, but all that does is allow The Jourmudgeon to do boring old things like operate a motor vehicle and use it for ID at most places. The REAL ID driver’s license, by contrast, would allow The Jourmudgeon to run his fastest and jump his highest, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and honestly tell the difference between Chateau Lafitte-Rothschild ’71 and melted popsicles. Also, it would allegedly allow The Jourmudgeon to get past TSA at airports after October 2020, unless The Jourmudgeon wanted to carry his passport with him when he traveled, which, the DMV strongly hinted, was a stupid idea. To get his REAL ID driver’s license, all the Jourmudgeon needed to do was fill out an online form in advance, print out the form and take it with him to his nearest DMV asylum, along with his passport, his current driver’s license, his Social Security card, and his voter registration card, all of which had to display The Jourmudgeon’s name identically. Check. Factoid that will come as no surprise to anyone who knows The Jourmudgeon reasonably well: The Jourmudgeon still carries his original Social Security card. In fifty-one years he has never seen it go astray or had to replace it. It has been honored by all governments, foreign and domestic, local, state and federal, and a frightening array of bureaucracies within each. With valid photo ID, it has stood as proof of his Social Security number at banks, mortgage companies, airports, employers, educational institutions public and private, massage parlors – wait, scratch that last one. No individual or institution has ever tried to argue that The Jourmudgeon’s Social Security card is not valid proof of his Social Security number.
Until three days ago, when the clowns at the Lexington DMV asylum informed The Jourmudgeon: Since when is your Social Security card, along with valid photo ID, proof of your Social Security number? Since I got it fifty-one years ago, The Jourmudgeon answered. Also, since your chirpy email informed The Jourmudgeon that his Social Security card, along with his passport and current driver’s license, were acceptable proof of stuff. Also, since governments foreign and domestic, local, state and federal — and a frightening array of bureaucracies within each — banks, mortgage companies, airports, employers, educational institutions public and private, massage parlors – if The Jourmudgeon’s Social Security card is not proof of his Social Security number, The Jourmudgeon asked finally, what is? Have you got a Medicare card? Asked Clown No. 1. (Medicare recipients, you know where this is going, right?) Indeed I do, The Jourmudgeon replied. It’s the one Medicare recently reissued to all Medicare recipients that no long bears the holder’s Social Security number FOR SECURITY REASONS. Sorry, said the Clowns, not our problem. At that point, the simple solution to the problem occurred to The Jourmudgeon: Go get a plain old-fashioned license at a DMV asylum far from Lexington. Carry your passport when you travel. And wait for other people who also have to go through this lunacy to rise up in revolt, seize whoever decided the REAL ID license was a good idea in the first place, and take him or her out and burn him or her at the stake, using all those REAL ID licenses and their attendant paperwork for fuel.
