<\/p>\n
Every once<\/strong><\/span> in a while I go full Harvey Pekar. Like yesterday, when I spent half the day running bummer errands and waiting in lines. I had three missions: new driver\u2019s license, new passport, flu shot. Wait, it gets interesting. Slightly. For example, I took an envelope from the Huntington Bank ATM lobby and the envelope had a $30 check in it — payable to the Ohio Treasurer from a tailor, dated a year ago. My son Ted took the check to the tailor shop, and the guy was happy to get it.<\/p>\n Bureau of Motor Vehicles. I registered online, so I got to cut in front of the 30-or-so people waiting in line on the sidewalk, social distancing.\u00a0On my way out, I told everybody, \u201cIn and out — A to Z — in 30 minutes. Go home and sign up online.\u201d Nobody moved.<\/p>\n Flu shot.<\/strong><\/span> CVS couldn’t pull up Medicare on its screen so I left. I went back to the bank. The line was still long there, so I slipped my dough in the night drop. I had cash, which is a bit risky to \u201cdrop,\u201d but so far no problems — and \u201cso far\u201d for me means the last four decades. I wouldn\u2019t slip 5K cash in a night drop, but I\u2019m pretty sure plenty of retail merchants do.<\/p>\n CVS reprise. The Medicare computer connection was now working. I told the shot administrator he had the voice and demeanor of a doc, and he was flattered. I thought he was a clerk. No, he was a doctor of pharmacology. \u201cDid you go to Ohio Northern?\u201d I asked. Bullseye. He said, \u201cHow\u2019d you know that?\u201d Ohio Northern = pharmacy.<\/p>\n My passport<\/strong><\/span> photo doesn’t look so good, but hey, I\u2019m 70, and the government doesn\u2019t let you wear glasses now. My wife got hers, too, and she said hers is worse. I told the passport-photo taker, \u201cI guess I\u2019m not 35 anymore.\u201d Like a lot of old guys, I like to BS with clerks. I hit it off with everybody yesterday but the BMV ladies. I bragged to a BMV clerk, “This is an original social security card from 1961.\u201d She didn\u2019t care. My dad had\u00a0gotten the card for me when he bought me two shares of GTE in 1961. (GTE eventually became Verizon.) The card is crisp and has never been in a wallet. It’s got my childhood address and postal zone (as opposed to ZIP code) on it. Did you read this far? Pekar would have gotten you this far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every once in a while I go full Harvey Pekar. Like yesterday, when I spent half the day running bummer errands and waiting in lines. I had three missions: new driver\u2019s license, new passport, flu shot. Wait, it gets interesting. Slightly. For example, I took an envelope from the Huntington Bank ATM lobby and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pekar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28111"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28129,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28111\/revisions\/28129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}