Face to Face with America: Who I Met In the Waiting Room of the Social Security Administration
at 8/31/2007 04:54:00 PM- Two homeless men with their case worker.
- A hippie couple- most likely with names like Peablossom and Quarry-- getting a social security number for their midwived, natural-birthed baby.
- A 6'4 african-american security guard who answers everyone's inane questions while nervously putting his hand to the butt of his gun.
- A half-dozen or so european immigrants chattering to each other in their native tongues and their designer t-shirts.
- A half-crazed Latina woman wearing a hospital gown with a bucket of cleaning supplies protectively draped under her arm on the seat next to her. (This woman made eye-contact with me while I was looking for an empty seat and firmly repositioned her bucket on it's seat as if to say "Sorry, Forest. Seat's taken.")
- A terrified old couple who keep sneaking glances at the people waiting and asking them what their race is.
- A teenage girl who is so bored you'd think she'd been waiting for her number to be called since since God was a boy.
- A filthy man in all denim with slicked back hair and heavy boots whom I have named "Wayne." I really wish Wayne would take off his sunglasses.
- A handsome Thai man explaining how his bluetooth headset works to the mother and daughter in the row ahead of him.
- (The hippie infant, by the way, has begun crawling and climbing all over the case worker's desk. Her parents aren't reigning her in, they are instead testifying to the benefits of letting babies "explore.")
- A housewife who "doesn't mind the wait, is just happy to be in air-conditioning, but wishes she'd brought a book."
- A man in a strategically ripped rock and roll t-shirt and rock and roll stubble peering out from beneath his gold-rimmed rock and roll aviator glasses with a sense of rock and roll smug superiority.
- and me.
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it was "smug dissatisfaction with the line" not "superiority"
p.s. - good to see you at the SS office, howie!
James said...
September 4, 2007 4:01 PM
i was just going to point out that james martin was one of those dudes, but apparently username:james beat me to it.
EITHER WAY HOWIE U ARE STATLER AND WALDORF ONLY IN ONE PERSON!!!!
caleb said...
September 7, 2007 6:43 PM