April 1, 2013
Pastorgraphs: “An April Fool’s Joke…On Me”
Sometimes
these weekly musings are serious, sometimes not. Today’s is not. I’m a bit late
getting this out because Anita and I just returned from our appointment at the
Social Security Administration (SSA). We both become eligible for Medicare
within a couple months, and learned there are penalties if we don’t register
for Medicare in a timely fashion. Since our upcoming birthdays are one
month apart and we are both within the three month window SSA provides, we
decided to file at the same time.
Anita went
first. Things went fairly smoothly for her at first, except that she had to
definitively prove she IS a US Citizen (something the government, including the
Department of Defense for which she worked for 45 years never questioned). You
see, because her father was a Navy aviator stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
she was born on “US soil” (military base), but not in the 50 states. It took
some doing, but the SSA now accepts that she is a “foreign born” US Citizen,
and eligible for Medicare.
Mine was a
whole different story. I applied for Medicare online, and since I was born in
the good old US of A, counted on getting approved without much fanfare. You
cannot imagine the shock when SSA called and asked that I come in with my
certified birth certificate. When asked if there was a problem, the nice lady
said when I requested a replacement Social Security card back in 1988, someone
at SSA entered that I was (are you ready for this?) a FEMALE!
[Pause
–waiting for the laughter to die down. Please laugh. I did too, and still am.]
That’s
right, for the past quarter century the SSA has been accepting my Social
Security and Medicare contributions from a FEMALE with the unusual name of
William L. Jenkins, Jr. I mean, it’s not Willamena, or Billie Sue. And
shouldn’t the Jr. at the end been a hint?
I had been
warned of the life changes associated with aging, but this one was not
expecting. Talk about your big-time identify crisis!
This could
have been serious. How do you get the Federal government to admit a mistake,
and even then, will they be able to correct it in their database? What if they
insist they cannot change their records? Was this going to be some horrendous
ordeal? And how do you go about proving your gender to the Federal government,
other than…well I’m not going there.
So I called
home and prepared my sister Linda that she might have another sister instead of
two living brothers. And what about my marriage? Did Florida have a same-sex
marriage law in 1993 when Anita and I got married in Pensacola?
Good news:
By providing a certified copy of my birth certificate, the SSA is going to
update their records and switch me back to being MALE. My manhood has been
restored.
I should
have listened to my own Easter sermon, not worrying about how this stone was
going to get rolled away.
And
speaking of the Easter service, it was excellent. The Sanctuary was full, the
music excellent. Thank you, Pastor Donald Owens, for inviting me to preach. It reminded
me of the wonderful combined congregation services we had a few years ago, only
this one was the best yet! And thank you Jeannetta Kramer for sharing the photo
she took of me back in the pulpit again.
I’m happy
to be a MAN again. (That’s how I roll.) Hope all this starts your week off with
a chuckle. Laughter is good for the soul.
Pastor Bill
From the
Quote Garden:
“Life
is what we make it, always has been, always will be.”
~ Grandma Moses ~
Christ United Methodist Ministry
Center
“Christ
in the Heart of San Diego”
3295
Meade Avenue - San Diego, CA 92116 - (619) 284-9205
No comments:
Post a Comment