I guess we all have our crosses to bear in life, but mine seems to be this: freaky technical/administrative glitches that turn something that works *effortlessly* for other people into an anxiety nightmare for me. Example: my birthdate, which is listed correctly on both my birth certificate and marriage license, but was entered incorrectly by someone at the social security office when I got married and changed my name—a problem caused on *their* end—which they refuse to fix unless I take those documents (the same ones they were sent when I applied for a new card) in person to the social security office somewhere in Springfield.

The most recent example of this is my newly acquired library card. Yes, I’m embarrassed to say, I *just* got a library card here in town, though I’ve lived here since late 2000. I applied for my card one evening a month or so ago without a hitch, but when I tried later to create a login for the library system’s online reservation service, it did not recognize my card number. I tried again over the course of several days, both from my home computer and from work. Eventually, I dragged myself back in to the library to see what was up, and weirdly, the card registered just fine on the library’s own computers. Elated to have fixed the problem, I gleefully logged in later that night from home, only to encounter the same problem as before. [Read more…]