To Hell in a Handbasket

Yesterday I had the lovely opportunity of spending the better part of 2 hours in Hell (aka the Social Security Office). I got a new card after Steve and I got married, but it went through the wash so I needed yet another new one.

There are many, varied, and unusual (thank you Ms. Martindale) sorts of people to be found at the Social Security Office. The first example of humankind at it's finest was the man sitting next to me (brain injured wife in tow) who quite obviously did NOT know the meaning of the word shower. After going outside for multiple cigarette breaks, he decided it was time to fill out the necessary paperwork for obtaining a card. He answered the standard questions: name, date of birth, address, etc, and then came to the question of Place of Birth. He thought about this for a moment, wrote in Valencia, and then asked me in all seriousness, "Do you know how to spell California?" He then proceeded to tell me that he needed a social security card to get a state i.d. so he could prove who he was when he went to court next week. And he wasn't even the best story...

Sitting about 4 people down from me was a young woman of about 18. She arrived just ahead of me, and so we spent about the same amount of waiting. After about 45 minutes of waiting for her number to be called she began to get quite antsy and impatient. She squirmed around, stood up, sat back down, lathered, rinsed, and repeated. After she became quite agitated she began to yell, "This is ridiculous! I've been waiting here for an hour and nobody has called my number! I don't have all day people! No one should be kept waiting this long for a stupid piece of paper!" Everyone in the place was giving her a wide berth and strange looks at this point. One brave soul leaned over and said, "Honey, we're all waiting here together, and we all have other places to be. We just have to wait for our turn." This seemed to calm the girl down momentarily until a woman came in carrying a pink slip of paper that allowed her to jump right to the next open window without waiting for her number to be called. This pushed our little friend right over the edge. She jumped out of her seat and started screaming, "Are you kidding me?! I've been waiting here forever, what gives that stupid girl the right to jump in line in front of me?! If one more person jumps ahead I'm going to start bashing heads in!" (She used much more colorful language than that, but I felt it inappropriate to repeat here. This is a family blog after all.) At this point the security guard decided to intervene from behind his glass. Something about the uniform must've scared her because she didn't utter a peep the rest of the wait.

After this lovely experience I got to go hear Mac play in the Elementary School band and orchestra concert. For being the only string bass player he did really well. As the band teacher was introducing each section they'd raise a hand or a bow to show the students who was who. So, the band teacher says, "Bass" and instead of raising a hand or a bow, what does Mac do? He flashes the "rock on" sign at everyone. Like this for example:
Apparently a little known fact of playing the string bass is that it makes you hard core. Who knew? He's also mastered the bass spin, although at this point it's more a nervous habit than anything.

I'm getting ready for our field trips this summer. We've already got a few cool places planned, and I'm taking a class next week about fun, free things to see and do in Salt Lake. I'm going to try and get us out to see things we haven't yet.

I'm pretty excited about the warm weather, but not so excited about the fact that now that it's warm our downstairs neighbors feel the need to do laundry every night. Considering that it's an older building we all share a dryer vent system, which means anytime they do laundry our apartment turns into a sauna. So not fun, but what can we do.

I think that's about all for now. I hope you're all enjoying the beginnings of summer as much as I am!