As a favor to my dearest friend, I went today to the Federal Building in San Francisco to drop off a piece of paper.
I cleverly left my pocket-knife behind (and missed it twice) but, addled by a lifetime of drug abuse and masturbation, neglected to bring along an annotated wallet-size portrait of myself. (In the normal course of life, I may go weeks without needing to back up my claim to a name.)
Hurry home. Get the stupid piece of laminated paper. Hurry back. ($16 for the round trip.) Nine minutes too late for my errand, though the building was still open. The U.S.Marshal at the gate compared my face to the even surlier smaller version, but did not take a note of my name or check it against a list.
Picking a quarrel with an underling might have been entertaining at first, but it would bring me no satisfaction (I’m learning!), so I asked him instead to identify someone in a position to explain to me why such a policy was not a pointless waste of his time and mine. He was sympathetic and helpful on that point; perhaps relieved that I did not make more of a scene? The party I want is the head of the Marshals Service.
The trip was not a total loss: I had a satisfying Vietnamese lunch at Golden House, which would be in the shadow of the Fed Bldg if the sun were in the northwest.
I gather that Golden House is no more, alas.