It becomes a perfect time to blog. Because, when you're sitting in a Social Security Administration office, there's little else to do, if you were foolish enough to forget to bring a book.

For starters, I'd finally settled down with the stacks of insurance come-ons that had been piling up for months -- and had picked out the outfit I wanted -- but wups! I had to fill out info from my Medicare card. What card?

I asked some friends, and they said I'd probably received it weeks ago but it wouldn't have been in a distinctive envelope. I check online and it says I can get a replacement in a Social Security office, and the nearest is an hour's drive away. So I drove. Took a number, and had to wait less than 10 minutes to be called. Cool.

But I'm not in the records. What's the problem? Oh, she finally determines, I'm not getting SS payments. Correct. Just want that missing Medicare card; I'm not retired. Oh. Sit down, and they'll call me. They wouldn't have sent me a card, because I'm not getting SS payments. OK. So it's now about 3/4 of an hour since I got here and they've called FOUR names (as opposed to those numbers handed out first).

I guess my point is that I can read and write (well, blog anyway), and this is confusing and annoying for me. So what's it like for others without my advantages, slim though they may be? But they HAVE called out one more name. So there's hope.