03 August 2009

Another good letter

Courtesy of my friend Dave, a supposedly real letter to the Passport Office:
Dear sirs,
I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this. How is it that Radio Shack has my address and telephone number, and knows that I bought a cable television from them back in 1987, and yet, the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date.
For chrissakes, do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my social security card, and it is on all the income tax forms I've filed for the past thirty years. It is on my health insurance card, my driver's license, on the last eight damn passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the plane over the last thirty years, and all those insufferable census forms at election times.
Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Maryanne, my father's name is Robert, and I'd be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and when I die!
I apologize, I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of this bullshit! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my fuckin' address. But what is going on? You have a gang of Neanderthal assholes workin' there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like bin Laden? I don't want to dig up Yasser Arafat, for shit's sake. I just want to go and park my ass on a sandy beach.
And would someone please tell me why would you give a shit whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next fifteen days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, I'd sure as hell not want to tell anyone!
Well, I have to go now, 'cause I have to go to the other end of the city and get another fuckin' copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of sixty bucks. Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day? Nooooo, that'd be to damn easy and maybe makes sense. You'd rather have us running all over the fuckin' place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some asshole to confirm that it's really me on the damn picture— you know,the one where we're not allowed to smile? (Bureaucratic fuckin' morons.) Hey, you know why we can't smile? We're totally pissed off!
Signed
An Irate Citizen.

PS: Remember what I said above about the picture and getting someone to confirm that it's me? Well, my family has been in this country since 1776. I have served in the military for something over thirty years and have had security clearances up the wazoo. However, I have to get someone'important' to verify who I am— you know, someone like my doctor, who was born and raised in India...

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