If You Think Getting Your Hands On Obama's Birth Certificate...

...was a bitch, you should try to get MINE. The last time I needed my birth certificate was when I needed a passport. All I did was go to New Jersey's Department of Vital Statistics website, pay 8 bucks with a credit card and give information that no one else would have besides me (with the possible exception of Donald Trump). That was it, and if memory serves, it was easier to get my birth certificate than it is to order a PaPa John's pizza online.

I still don't think I actually NEED my birth certificate but is seems as though getting a driver's license in the state of Florida is almost as tough as it is to get a New Jersey birth certificate. The last time I got a license in a new state, all I needed was my old license from the state from which I had moved. But, in this crazy post 9-11 world, you need a birth certificate to get a driver's license in Florida. That didn't really bother me too much until New Jersey informed me that I would require a current state-issued ID to get my birth certificate. My old ID wouildn't do because New Jersey demands that the ADDRESS on the ID be current. My Georgia ID is so UN-current that I've lived in Chicago and LA since I left the address on my driver's license.

And, what the hell is Georgia doing with my stupid thumb-print? When Georgia passed a law requiring a thumb-print in exchange for a driver's license, they said that it was for us...the citizens of Georgia. To make identification easier and identity theft more difficult, the state of Georgia now has my thumb-print. But it does ME no good now that I need it to prove who I am!

Ironically, according to New Jersey state law, if I were a convicted felon, the identification thing would be waved in lieu of a letter from my prison case-manager. I'd have to rob a bank, get convicted AND be sentenced to prison time and then Jersey will bend the rules for me. But, as long as I continue to obey most laws, I do not stand to benefit from that particular loophole.

My son tried to get it for me and they asked for HIS birth certificate. He sent it to them, but it did no good. I think it would have helped if I had been an unwed mother, but since I was married to the father of my kids, the name on their birth certificate is my married name, not my maiden name. Since I wasn't born married, my birth certificate has my maiden name on it and that is one name that isn't on the birth certificates of my children. So, although they have "standing" to request my birth certificate, they don't have proof of who I am.

While I've been wrestling with the state of New Jersey, my Georgia driver's license expired. Now I have absoluetly NO state issued identification. Luckily, I don't really drink so I don't get carded and the seizures pretty much keep me afraid to drive so I haven't had much of a problem. But I'm pretty sure being without identification is a crime so maybe I'll just turn myself in, go to prison and ask my prison case-manager to handle it for me.