Being John Ma...Er...Dustin Ragan

Today I was in the interesting position of failing to prove that I am me to someone on the other side of the world. I know this sounds like the premise of an episode of a Wednesday evening sitcom, and maybe it is--God being a comedian playing to an audience to scared to laugh and all that (and what does every comedian get? His own TV show! And I have a role! I made it!).

But let us begin, as they say, at the beginning. Last night I was on my way back from the grocery store and I noticed that the air conditioner in my car was not working. It still isn't. This puts the fan in the same company as the passenger side window, the driver side power door lock, the internal lighting, and my fender, all of which are awaiting reincarnation after being melted down for scrap.

Unless it is a trivial fix of some belt (which it may be), I figure I have about 2 months before driving to work every day becomes a struggle for life against the Houston sun.

Preparing for the worst, I ordered a credit report. This is a fairly irritating process. As verification of your identity, you have to provide the credit card numbers of all of your credit cards, your street address, SSN, and year of birth. After a moment of panic when they were asking for three credit card numbers--I have a gas card thatwas long forgotten--I proceeded to the next question, which was "Here are a list of street names, some of which you have lived on. Give one address where you have lived." I entered my current street address.

Thirty minutes later, after speaking at length with a nice Indian gentleman, it was concluded that their computer system does not have enough information about me to verify that I am me. They can, however, mail my credit report to me.

This is the same street address that they were unable to verify me with.

My faith in the system is, yet again, deplenished.