I'm Not Here...

Dear All of you who might be in the here & now.
Don't take it for granted that your government does. It's
a sorta "reverse paranoia" ("I have this feeling that I'm
always following someone"...from the late, great George
Carlin, my guru). Instead, it's the realization that my
government (or agencies) has lost track of my being here
& now. I came to realize this state of affairs when I
applied for my Social Security Benefits. Using the
internet I found that they had no record of me. My
application was somewhere lost in cyberspace. I resorted
to an antiquated device, the telephone, to find out why
I no longer exist. Did I die and no one bothered to tell
me? Beatle Paul McCartney commmented on this in regards
to people perceiving a cryptic message from a Beatles'
tune to mean "Paul is dead". "I'd probably be the last
to know", he quipped. This sort of thing happens when
records are run backwards...which seems to be what the
U.S. Social Security Agency did to my records, not to
compare them to the Beatles' records.

After moving to live & work in Japan I didn't need to
pay into Social Security. After 20 years this came
back to haunt me...or cause me inconvenience anyway.
It seems Social Security decided that I no longer
existed and assigned my SS# to someone else. To
paraphrase a favorite ditty of mine:
Yesterday I met a man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today,
Everyday, he isn't there,
Oh, how I wish he'd go away.
I've somehow become someone else! But, I won't go away.
As of now, the U.S. govt. & I have resolved this matter.
The embassy's staff were quite baffled by this at first
because they'd never encountered a case such a this
before. I wonder what the other person with my SS# is
going to do.

To quote an embassy staff member:"I mean, I can see
your documents and that you are you...I'm sure you've
doubted the fact."

I don't now doubt the fact that I am Me. I'll always
think of this whenever I hear someone say "I don't
know who I am...I need to find my identity and place
in this world!" Just ask your local embassy.

Yurz, Martin