This is where I'd rather be, instead of where I am now, fighting my way through traffic, packed elbow-to-elbow in the Walmart line, crowded in everywhere I go.

I went to the dentist today and had a bonding experience - literally, he bonded my teeth. The first time I have ever gotten Novocain, and now I understand what the fuss is all about. I much prefer laughing gas. My upper lip was completely dead for 3 hours; I had to stay away from hot liquids and hope that I wouldn't be pulled over on the way home.

Which brings me to my next problem: I have lost my license. Try explaining this story to a cop with a mouthful of Novacain: I can't find my license, and I also can't find my social security card (which the DMV requires as one form of accepted identification). The dumbest part? Apparently the state commands that you need one to get the other. What kind of broken system do we have when the social security office won't accept a birth certificate because it's "not a current form of id?"

It gets better - the social security office will accept certified school transcripts as a form of identification. Transcripts take up to 3 weeks to be processed and sent to me, and once I go to the social security office with them (and take a half day off of work to do that), it will take up to a week to receive my new card in the mail. All together, it will take up to a month to get a new card...and the DMV will issue me a temporary, 10-day license until I gather all the necessary forms of id they require. Since I'll need about a month, what happens after the 10 days are up? Will I have to go back down to the DMV? Every other year is too much for me - a trip to that place is like a week long vacation in hell.

Sigh...why is it so complicated? I wish I could call the governor and tell her to fix this annoying, broken, complicated, time-consuming, stupid, backwards system and make it easier for people to just live. They even have my license, with picture, on file - why can't they just pull it up and look at it?

It's like I'm playing tug-of-war against society.