TIME CONTROL

They say that time flies when you're having fun, or if you're doing something that can be considered as fun. If I could, I'd spend my life only doing things that I deem fun. The years may fly, making me die that much faster, but at least I had a blast.

I pause in my writing, wondering whether or not I should turn this ramble into a post for my blog. Would a narrative on waiting for your turn at the Social Security Services branch make good entry material? Considering that a blog is a personal thing, naturally, anything that I post I would consider good enough, right? Quite a dilemma, no?

It was around quarter to nine when I began to write, my right ankle on my left knee, my plastic folder propped on my right leg and thigh, scribbling intently on the back of a rejected thesis proposal. In the vernacular, my pose would be called de cuatro, evoking the shape of the Arabic numeral 4. I wrote to accelerate the chimes that signal change on the LED display - it is currently serving customer 1017. When 1049 comes around, it will be my turn.

I'm doing this on a workday, Wednesday, and when night falls I'll be heading to the office. I work the graveyard shift for a business outsourcing firm, handling tech support for a financial software company. The pay is quite good - a college washout who only has a high school diploma to his name could do worse than $415.55 a month.

Again I pause, as a soft-spoken gentleman calls out names in a carrying voice, and I hear him mention mine. I walk up to him and he informs me to head to the ID capture area. Good, I think - I'm making progress. (The ID capture area, contrary to what you might have imagined, was not laden with red and white spheres the size of baseballs.) It has been exactly thirty minutes since I started writing this, and I move deeper into the alcove that holds the camera equipment. An older man chats me up, and we speak for a minute. A guard walks over and begins sorting people who need to get their picture taken.

(Here ends the manuscript - original content follows.)

I was third in line for getting my photo taken. A short, pregnant woman in a red dress was accommodated first, and the older man who spoke with me went second. The process is simple - stare at the camera, then walk up to the desk to record your right index fingerprint and thumbprint, and do the same for your left hand. Finally, you are asked to enter and confirm a four-digit PIN. The same man who was calling out names earlier took my biometrics, wrote on a slip of paper which he tore off and handed to me. It seems to be my claim stub for the ID card.

"Next," he called out. I took that as my cue to leave.

I was waiting for a ride home by 10:33 AM.