Hardyville: Bob Gets Government ID by Claire Wolfe

The following story is true. It took place in the Year of Our Police State 2004. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.

In Hardyville as you may know, we aren't real fond of governments that order us to "comply" with anything. That goes especially for national ID and other such nonsense.

Any official who got so uppity as to issue a license just so people could go about their peaceable business would probably end up on the receiving end of some extremely unpeaceable business. Very likely involving tar and a few naked chickens. If that official demanded any Hardyvillian's biometrics, he'd quickly find himself sans a few bits of his own biology.

But for some reason, Bob-the-Nerd took it into his head that he needed Official Government Documentation of his identity.

"After all," he said one day at the Hog Trough Grill and Feed, "If I don't have government ID, I'm probably going to hijack an airplane. Or commit welfare fraud. Isn't that why they're demanding national ID? You wouldn't want me turning into a terrorist or a welfare queen, would you?"

Since there's not a single government office in Hardyville where he could do it, Bob took himself off to ... well, let's say a certain western state known for sin and decadence. (Which is right next to another western state known for saintly virtue. But the sin state gets more tourists.) And he presented himself at the drivers license bureau. Not in the drivers license line, but in the Official Government ID line.

There is reason for this. Although the federales have been busy for a decade now, making it harder and harder to get a drivers license without all sorts of silly "complying," in this sinful state all you have to have to get an Official Government ID card is a birth certificate.

He started with his certificate exactly as was. Then he scanned it into his computer and very carefully, pixel by pixel, took out all the typed data (leaving the signatures and pre-printed form). He cleaned his document up so he left no broken lines or bits of original typing. Then he downloaded old typewriter fonts off the Internet and filled in brand new data, including new parents, new birthdate, and new name for himself.

Bob got his new parents out of online databases. He started with the Social Security Death Index, but quickly went on to geneaology sites, where it was easier to discover two dead people who were actually married to each other shortly before Bob came into the world.

Bob had to do a little more searching than you or I might have to do, as Bob is slightly ethnic. But after a few hours, he had his new folks. And even had their social security numbers, courtesy of that SS Death Index.

(I should add here that any computer-phobic person could do pretty much what Bob did without resorting to electronics. The old-fashioned way would involve white-out fluid and white-out tape on the birth certificate, clean photocopies, use of a vintage typewriter purchased for five bucks at a garage sale, and some in-person research at a Mormon Family History Center to find a parently pair. And note: You do not want to use modern type fonts on an "old" document, as Dan Rather discovered to his embarrassment.)

Bob printed his new old birth certificate out on his ink-jet printer, complete with Official Purple state stamp, which he didn't even have to alter. (Bob was lucky; his BC didn't have the raised seal that a lot of documents do. But if it had ... well, a silver dollar placed under the paper and rubbed lightly around the edges with a finger or an eraser creates an embossed seal that can be easily felt. And you know how those old seals get when you've been carrying a document around for years. Hard to read, those things.)

After all that, Bob folded his new old BC up, shoved it in his back pocket, sat on it for a few days, then stuck it in an oven for a while at 250 degrees to age the paper (watching carefully to make sure it didn't get too well browned).

Then he was ready. So Bob presented himself in line, having duly filled out the application form with the address of an apartment building he'd scoped out that morning.

He didn't put any social security number on the application. That was the only thing the bored DMV clerk seemed to notice. "No number?" she asked, pointing at the blank spaces.

"Do you have any other ID?" she said, glancing at the clock as if her coffee break was 30 seconds overdue.

"Darnit," Bob objected, "I called in advance and I checked the your website. They said I didn't have to have ... Oh, heck." He fished around in his pocket and came up with the only other ID he just happened to be carrying: A certificate of completion for a real first aid course he'd taken under his new name and a student ID for the Online Academy of Cosmetology, Puppetry, and Mine Management he'd carefully designed and laminated.

But no number?" the clerk scolded, glancing uncritically at his alternative ID. "That's highly irregular."

"That's an abomination unto God," Bob uncharacteristically thundered, unleasing his pit bull of a religious discrimination argument. "The Book of Revelation warns that in the latter days the Beast shall cause all men to take a number without which they can neither buy nor ..."

"I'll check with my supervisor," the clerk said, swiftly disappearing behind a partition.

She came back a moment later, stamped an acceptance on the application, and pointed Bob toward the photo line.

Bob thought he had it made. But not quite. As he stood before the camera, a second clerk peered as his numberless application and started in:

"Uh ..." Here, he was a little stuck. Was it 3323 North Oak Street or 3233? He'd filled out his application using notes. Memory faltered.

The clerk looked at him skeptically as he scrambled the numbers. "Darn," he said. "I just moved there and I can't remember off the top of my head. But," he smiled helpfully, "I'm sure the apartment number is 268."

The clerk looked reassured. Still, she peered at him one last time. "Mother's maiden name?" she queried.

"Oh, that's easy." Bob perked up. "Kimberly Midori Kimura. They called her 'Bruiser,' actually. But ..."

And a few minutes later, Bob-the-Nerd ... or is it now Tim-the-Nerd? ... walked out with his laminated, registered, genuine, databased Official Government Identification. And with the key to starting a whole collection of Tim Okida documentation.

"And now," he explains to all the folks at the big round table at the Hog Trough, "You can breathe a sigh of relief. I have government ID. So all your airplanes and your tax dollars are suddenly, miraculously safe from the likes of me. Amazing how that works, isn't it? I wouldn't believe it, except that my government says it's so, so it must be so. Darn, I'm such a good citizen!

"But the rest of you non-ID'd scofflaws ... well, you we obviously can't trust."

Bob Gets Government ID

By Claire Wolfe