April 11, 2025

Yesterday, we were scheduled for a visit from the septic tank pumper.  Dude said he'd call 30 minutes before arrival.  When it seemed obvious that we were not the first job on his list, I decided to work on a problem that's been annoying me ever since I retired.

You see, I'd applied for Social Security benefits, had been approved, but had not received any payments. I knew that these things take time, but I was worried.  The application approval notice, sent just a few days into the new administration, had said that I'd receive a letter showing the amount of my benefit and the timing of the payments within 10 days, or so, but we were well beyond that, and no further correspondence had come.  Considering all of the chaos reported by the media, I was worried that my application had fallen through the cracks and wanted to speak to a live person about it.  I started calling.

Long story short, I spent a total of FIVE HOURS on hold and finally got through.  Although this was not said outright, the ball was dropped, the process stalled.  Hopefully, it's fixed now.  Hopefully.  

One number that I called warned that the wait time would be two hours.  I put the phone on speaker and sat down at the sewing machine to begin piecing the wedding gift quilt.  My wait was nearly three hours.  Made astonishing progress on the quilt.