oh so wrong...

Once again, gov'ment agents have astounded me with their smug ignorance.  A loooooooooong story somewhat shorter, mom had stopped at the Social Security Administration offices here in Starkville to see if she could get her mother's ss#, to include on a form which is requesting her mother's death certificate so that she can then send that to the insurance company.  There is so much laughably wrong with the entire story, like why the insurance company is just now wanting a death certificate for a woman who died 36 yrs ago.  But I'll just stick with one element of what occurred today.

The SS Gov'ment agent insisted that my mom was not spelling her mother's name correctly.  Why?  Well because he entered the name three different ways into the system and could not track the number down.  So mom suggested that it might be possible that her mother never had a social security number {after all, Grandma would now be 100 years old, had she lived}.  OH no, ma'am, that's not possible.  Why, it's the law that babies are sent home from the hospital with one.  Well, since the lady was born a full two decades before the Social Security Administration was founded, and since she was NOT born in the hospital, and since it's most certainly not the law to send babies home with one....but the Gov'ment Agent assured my mom that he knew that her mom had to have a number.  And he was also sure that if my mom contacted her mom's school that she graduated from, they would have the number on file in their records.  Mom, who knew that continuing the conversation was an exercise in futility, made one last attempt to reason with the pompous ass:  mom pointed out that her mom only finished eighth grade, that records were most likely not in existence anymore, especially since the school does not exist and has not for at least 75 yrs.  Well, if mom wanted to, she could request a number for her mother, all she needs is the death certificate.  WTF?!?

{sigh}  Ya can't make stupid shit up like this.