My driver's license is lost (perhaps somewhere between Chicago and KC on the way back from vacation)? My passport is expired and must be mailed off for renewal. I need it in 8 wks but I haven't sent off yet because I thought I could use it at the driver's license bureau as a form of ID. Today was the day I was gong to get my replacement driver's license (and finally update my address while at it). As I'm dropping my kids off at my mom's, I call to doublecheck and see what I need for a lost ID and change of address. Turns out a passport must be current for them to accept it. Crap. I drive back home again to retrieve the safe doposit box keys. I then drive over to my old bank across town in search of my birth certificate and social security card in the safe deposit box. Thank goodness those forms of ID don't expire until you do. (notice a pattern here? All of driving it is taking to get a replacement driver's license?)
Suddenly I remember I can't get into the safe deposit box without ID. But alas I have my old passport. I hand it to the attendant hoping it doesn't matter if it is expired. I'm in and find my birth certificate but no social security card. Dang it. So now in my possession, in a highly secured institution, I am holding an expired passport, an original birth certificate, a marriage certificate and every other freaking important document that belongs to either my husband or me that says I am who I am, but without my social security card I still can not get my driver's license. So once again I get behind the wheel of my car and drive home in search of me.
Luckily, my social security card was exactly where I thought it was at home. Not where it should be, but where I remember it being.
Okay, now here's what I find ironic: the National Passport Center accepts an expired passport as the only necessary form of ID for renewal by mail without seeing you. You don't even have to prove that the picture you're providing as a renewal picture is still you. The state of KS won't accept an expired passport even as a 2nd form in person. I could travel the world on my word that I say I am still who I say I am, but I cannot be reissued a state license even with proof of national identification....for a card that is still current and already in the system. Even more ironic - I'm driving all over town trying to gather my identify before going to bureau for a replacement card.
At least the bank let me use my old passport to get into the safe deposit box. I didn't point out the fact that it was expired. Had she known I was going to close the safe deposit box account she may not have let me use it. Now where would that have gotten me? Not far, well, at least not without a driver's license.
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