The (Other) End of the Internet

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I really hate dealing with any government office. Yesterday was a shining example of why.

I have some student loans from several years ago that I have been having trouble paying on since I became disabled. My sole income is a disability check plus the little extra I earn through sponsored posts here. Because of this, in December of 2005 I filled out some paperwork and sent it to the Department of Education and qualified as a ‘hardship’ case. This caused them to put my payments on hiatus for a period of time.

That was great. And then . . . Yesterday I got a letter in the mail saying that the Department of Education was going to start docking my disability check by $150. I called the number listed on the letter and the woman explained that the payments had been put off for a year and when I never returned the form they sent me, their only choice was to start taking the payments out of my check.

I explained to the woman that I never got a form from them. The last communication I had recieved from them was that the payments had stopped. Her brilliantly witty reply was, “We mailed you the form in December of 2006.”

I had to bite my tounge, but I really wanted to say, “I just told you thart I didn’t get it. Informing me of when your records say it was mailed is going to change that exactly how…?”

She eventually got it through her head that I didn’t send her form back because I never got it and agreed to send me another one.

Right after getting off the phone with her, it dawned on me that I qualified for Medicare last month but never got my ID card in the mail. I must really be a closet masochist, because I immediatly called another government office.

The guy at the Social Security Administration listened politely (chewing gum in my ear) while I explained that I should have gotten a Medicare ID card last month but I never did.

His ultra-witty response? “We mailed that to you on February 23.” Do you see a pattern here? What, am I supposed to, go, “Oh, you mailed it just five months ago? I guess I can give it another few weeks to show up.”

TELLING ME YOU WHEN MAILED IT DOES NOTHING TO SOLVE MY PROBLEM OF NEVER HAVING RECIEVED IT!!!!!!!!

This brainiac eventually decided he was going to mail me a letter I could use in place of a Medicare card until the “new” one shows up in about a month. Right now I have *SO* much faith in the U.S. Snail system I wouldn’t be surprised if my Medicare ID card showed up in Gnome, Alaska sometime in about 20 years.

I can just imagine this letter that they’re going to send me (by way of Saturn, no doubt):

“To whom it may concern.

“This person has a Medicare ID card. It is, at this moment, traveling the United States in the floorboard of a mail truck somewhere in Rooster Poot, Arkansas. Please use Medicare number ########## until his Identification card gets back from vacation.”

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