All hail Grummet!

For most, the close encounter with government that April brings is a brief view into the festering maw of the IRS via Tax Day. This year, I've had a trifecta beyond that...... and I can't claim the taxes, since I don't do 'em.

I turn 65 so I had to go through the Social Security interview, a polite excursion into Kafkaland. A forty-minute phone conversation later, and numberless questions important enough to ask, but to which I was assured repeatedly I needn't know the answers. On the other hand (I think that's three hands, so far......) I was informed both at the beginning and end of the conversation that the penalties of perjury apply. The good news (I think) is that I received a letter in the mail yesterday telling me that I'm a proud card-carrying member of Medicare.

Then there is an ongoing brushfire war with the VA, what we grew up calling the Veterans' Administration, but is evidently officially yclept the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Their motto: "You can't call us on the phone." The 800 number exists, and picks up immediately to a mechanical voice that says, in paraphrase: "We're too busy to come to the phone, so why are you bothering?" To give them a little credit, they do say that you can go to their Internet site with your questions. After going through several cycles of question & answer on the VA web site spanning a month and a half, I think the motto should be changed to: "We'll answer your questions in less than a week, but don't plan on anything either informative or relevant."
Without detailing ad nauseam, after seven months with a pending claim application with the VA for my Mother, it was denied....because we had filled out the wrong forms. Return to "GO," do not collect $200; start over.

Now I have fallen afoul of the Farm Service Administration, because we have the misfortune to own somewhat over three arable acres that we sharecrop with a local farmer. The FSA decided to generate a whole new registration system this year, which means a whole new sheaf of paperwork to be filled out, and deforestation proceeding apace. I mailed them in without the slightest conviction that they have been filled out correctly.

Ye shall know Bureaucracy by the signs given above, and by the Fifth Horseman, in this case riding one of paper. I've never been much for Hegel, but it convinces me that our stage of History is about done, and it's time for Grummet (aftermath). Could it all happen that quickly? Could the acceleration that is mentioned frequently in all other phases of contemporary society also accelerate the movement back to Chaos? I'd rather not find out.....but may not have a choice.