At The Last Minute

Dearest Rachel –

It was a good thing that I had basically finished my ‘work’ for the month (you know, the reports to be delivered to the elders and such like) by the end of the day on Thursday, honey. Yesterday wound up getting pre-empted by so much else happening at the last minute that it would have been impossible to come in to the ‘office.’

In fairness, it didn’t exactly start as last-minute as all that. I’d gotten a phone call in the mid-afternoon on Thursday from Larry – the fellow who’d sat with Daniel and me in the hospital on that terrible day – wanting to catch up with me, and let me know what was going on at camp these days. “I know it’s at short notice, but would you be able to meet me for coffee tomorrow morning? Say, at nine-thirty or so?”

So I had something like eighteen hours’ notice; time enough to let Mom know that I wouldn’t be in to the ‘office’ yesterday. Which was just as well, as far as she was concerned, as she had a couple of appointments and indeed, a whole shopping trip planned already, and wouldn’t be at the house for much of the day, in any event. So if my presence was to be there for her sake for any reason, that would be unnecessary of me.

Meanwhile, you might remember that Daniel and I had been to the social security office to get a physical card for him to present to the DMV in order to allow him to apply for a renewed driver’s license; he still hadn’t made an appointment to go there to get this matter done at this point. However, by now, Logan’s birthday was approaching, and his license was about to expire – and I think he’s considering upgrading to a Real ID, for whatever reason (I’m pretty sure that our passports tend to be sufficient for any purpose we have need for, but I don’t know) – so he decided to contact the office as soon as it opened yesterday morning to make an appointment for himself; and while he was at it, to also do so for Daniel, if at all possible.

I’m not sure it occurred to us that he would be able to make one for that same day; after our experience with Social Security, we might have assumed it would take a month or so. But that’s how things went, and suddenly, the boys were both lined up to show up shortly after one to get their renewed licenses. Daniel, in particular, would have to take a couple of tests before he could get his, but either way, he was supposedly all set to go. The only thing was, I would need to drive them – meaning I would need to get home from meeting Larry by then.

Not that a get-together over coffee should run that long to begin with, although I was surprised at how long we did take. Despite showing up nearly fifteen minutes early (thanks, Dad), I arrived there at pretty much the same time as he did, albeit by a different entrance as he did. After getting our coffees, we sat down outside, as their air conditioner was going a little too strong, and the weather outside was really quite nice for August.

There was a lot to fill him in on, as it has been at least a year since we’d seen each other, and maybe more like two or three. It shouldn’t come as any surprise to you that, for all the work I do on their finances, I’ve no desire to visit camp myself – and although I’ve been up there to plan budgets, the last couple of years haven’t required that, which I’m just as happy about. Meanwhile, Larry has been making connections with potential donors across the country, which seems wild for a little camp in southeastern Wisconsin to attract nationwide attention, but if it can be done, more power to them. Besides, there are a lot of big plans being made.

Granted – and I shouldn’t be surprised, since we’ve made some contributions on your urging, and I’ve been sending a regular amount to them ever since – Larry was (however reluctantly, given our history and present) also requesting that I give thought to increasing what I could do. No pressure, you understand, but they do have big plans; and I should know that as well as anyone could. I mentioned that I would consider it, but not right away.

And indeed, I do wonder if I’ve been a little slack-palmed about what I give. It’s one thing to give a certain percentage of one’s income; then, it’s easy to figure. It’s harder when there’s not so much income as a use of principal. It’s meant to last for my lifetime, and on to Daniel and ‘Megumi’ should they survive me, so there’s a need to be somewhat careful. But as far as uses for it all, there is a certain extent where it ought to be directed toward more eternal things than just my own health and comfort. Things has worked out fine thus far, but there’s no reason not to ratchet things up a bit more going forward. So while I didn’t get him a firm timeframe, I wanted to offer the possibility in the near future, anyway.

I got home with maybe an hour before the boys needed to be off to the DMV, which they proceeded to spend watching another couple of episodes of anime or whatever, while I stayed confined to the bedroom doing my own thing. I did warn them as to what time I would be wanting to take off, and they seemed agreeable. Indeed, they turned their shows off at that time, in readiness to head out…

…and it was at this moment that Daniel realized that he couldn’t find the social security card that we’d gone through all that ordeal to get for the sake of this license in the first place. To be sure, it had been sitting on my dresser for a number of weeks after it had first arrived, but at some point, I could have sworn I insisted that he carry it with him. To have it turn up missing at the last minute like this bordered on infuriating; I’m ashamed to admit that I was on the verge of losing my cool before it turned up on the floor between the two recliners in the family room. Both Logan and I urged him to put the card in his neck wallet before we headed off.

That, you might thing, was that; everything should have proceeded smoothly from there. But no. As part of the proof of identity process, Logan had to bring a bill from our address. Of course, as a tenant, he wouldn’t have a utility bill, and it hadn’t occurred to him to bring a pay stub, since he was paid electronically without any paper involved. He’d brought a bill or two, but for whatever reason, they weren’t acceptable for the DMV’s purposes. So he would have to make another appointment and come back again in the near future.

Meanwhile, we laid out Daniel’s paperwork; birth certificate, passport, old driver’s license and… where was the social security card? Somehow, it had been lost – again – between the car and the door to the DMV. Since I was required to fetch the insurance card for the auto (so that he could take his driving test), I looked for his card; nothing. This time, I did lose my cool for more than a moment; how on earth could he have lost it so quickly, especially after having been warned by both of us to keep it with him?

Fortunately, he didn’t actually need it – which, while calming me down somewhat (although there is this nagging concern that, if someone else were to find the card somewhere, that could spell trouble) also got me wondering why we were instructed to go through the trouble in the first place – just some documentation confirming his address, much like with Logan. The old license, while it had his address on it, was considered, well, old, and wouldn’t do. Maybe a bank statement…?

Of course, we hadn’t thought to bring one of those with, but according to the clerk, it should be discoverable on the bank’s website. The trouble was, the wi-fi reception was abysmal at the place; there was a whole lot of time spend staring at one daisywheel or another as it spun and tried to connect to the bank for the next half-hour. It didn’t help that it took a while to recall that the site would be inaccessible as long as Daniel had his VPN switched on, but even with it off, each page took an excruciatingly long time to load. Finally, we couldn’t find anywhere on the website to access an actual statement. The site had a ‘profile’ section, which displayed his address, but for whatever reason, that wasn’t good enough for the folks at the DMV.

The whole time he was trying to reach the site, he was becoming more and more frazzled, even as we were off to the side of the line, and I began to come down from the matter of the missing social security card. Given that Logan’s appearance had already proven to be a waste of time, the fact that Daniel was spiraling into panic mode might have made things too difficult for him to take any of the tests (although the vision test isn’t that kind of test, as such) in the proper frame of mind in any event; it was time to raise the white flag and make a point of showing up with an actual bank statement next time around – although at this point, I was about to wonder if they would think of something else they would demand of us that we wouldn’t think to bring by then.

As a comedown from all that nerve-wracking chaos, I suggested to the boys that we check out the Asian market that had opened up in the old Toys-R-Us building more or less next door (you remember the place, I’m sure, honey). I was expecting something of a Korean version of the Mitsuwa that exists in our own neighborhood.

It was definitely not the sort of day we were expecting to have from the moment we got out of bed, that’s for sure, honey. And while I’m relieved to have gotten through it, I’m not exactly looking forward to having to dealing with it again in the fairly near future – but it can’t be helped, if we’re to move forward with a few other things.

To that end, I’d ask you to keep an eye on all of us going forward, and that you’d wish us all well, as we’re going to need it, honey.