A while back, I set up a Social Security account online for Dave because he wasn’t all that wieldy with the interwebs. It was easy peasy. But we didn’t check it for years because everything was rolling along nicely, and after all I wasn’t going to get any survivor benefits. As a Civil Service employee, I didn’t even earn my own Social Security, and the powers that be weren’t about to let me siphon his. But all that changed recently, and now I am eligible for survivor benefits. I was amazed: did Trump actually do something helpful and nice? It seems so out of character.

Nope! His tiny fingerprints weren’t on it at all. Thanks, Joe Biden!

Anyway, when I tried to get back into Dave’s account, it was a non-starter. They had my old defunct email address in there, and every time I tried to log on to edit it, they insisted on sending me a verification at the old address. Which would have required the services of a medium.

But, in theory, I could create a new account, just for me. So I tried. It was all going snappy. I even breezed through the part where they took over my camera function and had me take a photo of my ID and myself to see if they matched up. They did. SUCCESS! the screen blared helpfully. I was flying through this process. And then, last thing, they wanted to verify my phone number. Which was helpfully printed right there on the screen. So I submitted it. And they said they cannot verify that I was ever associated with that number. The number they just took a picture of me on. The number I was using when I spent over three hours on hold with Social Security. THE NUMBER THEY HAD PRINTED RIGHT THERE AS MY NUMBER.

I tried typing it in manually and was similarly rebuffed with the scarlet exclamation point of doom. I tried two more times in case they were just kidding, but had to stop, because they warned if I did it too many times in a row, they were going to have to send some government goons to my house. I sure don’t want to be deported to sixteenth-century
England where my forebears came from. On the Mayflower, you nouveau-bitches.

Well. I sat on it for a while. And then it hit me: the process had gone too smoothly. They were able to tell how long it took me to get through the steps with the selfie and the ID photos, and it was way too fast for someone who claimed to have been born in 1953. Clearly I was a young impostor. I’m not! I’m not a young anything!

I just know how to use those functions because I have experience depositing checks from the comfort of my own recliner, and it uses the same technology!

[Note to the younger set: A “check” is like regular paper money, only better, because you can write in as much money on it as you want. What? “Paper money” is just like it sounds—actual bits of paper you can fold up and pay people with. What? Yes, it can get dirty, or lost, but it works, you Pixel Peanut, you. What? Sure, they’re real, you used to see them all the time. Either a check or paper money. Your grandma sent it to you in your birthday card. What? Birthday card. It’s paper too, and you can write anything you want in it, greetings, well wishes, your own thoughts. In cursive. What?]

Okay. I can prove I’m old. You know that bluetooth thingy? Well I don’t. I wouldn’t know bluetooth if it came up and bit me. You know how I talk on the phone without using my hands? I put it on Speaker and stick it in my bra. Take a picture of that, my dudes. I’ll show you old.

I’m waiting them out. Sooner or later they’re going to realize I couldn’t figure out how to fix this problem, and they’ll go Oh, fine, she’s old after all, and some little haptic chime will bless my device and I’ll be in, baby. Now give me my virtual money.