Estimated time to fill out application for duplicate birth certificate and receive copy?
15 to 20 minutes.
Actual time?
85 minutes.
Seems the pipeline from Montgomery to Birmingham was having trouble today, which meant the small waiting area at the squatty health department ziggurat was filled with a host of other folks with nothing better to do than wait at the health department for hours. Something like a combination of the Greyhound station, an emergency room, and the family room at the jail. Except no one was leaving, bleeding, or crying.
Lots of cell phones, though. There was the normal conversation level you might have in a small room punctuated by HEY! WHERE MAMA AT!? or various melodic stylings from providers of jangly polyphonic ringtones. I filled out my form, paid my money, and sat down on a sad squishy cheap red "sofa." There was a young guy across from me--good-looking kid, mid-20s, reading a book of some sort, baggy jeans, listening to some sort of hip urban techno synth music on his headphones, and with the letters L-O-V-E inked across his left knuckles, and P-A-I-N across the right. You know, young feller, when you do such things, you pretty much consign yourself to a life receiving much more of the right than of the left.
Anyway.
HEY! WHAT?! NAW!? WHAT!? 'BOUT AN HOUR! How I wish.
Anyway, they finally called my name, and here I am. Walked in and was told that Oldest and Wifest have been calling repeatedly. I wonder what that's all about?
I guess I should have had my cell phone turned on.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at June 7, 2005 02:10 PM