Although it had been my intention to regain residence in the state of Iowa and live in the city from which I graduated high school (with honors) back in 1976, the cards were stacked heavily against me. Due to the fact that I have been living in Germany for over five years, my US driver’s license was expired and of no use. Add to that the serendipitous ‘luck’ of escaping my Nazi (no hyperbole) mother-in-law in Germany on the LAST day before my passport expired and you have the stuff of Kafkaesque nightmares. This led to a situation where I arrived into the state of Iowa with absolutely NO current ID. I imagine the Iowa DMV is overwhelmed with fake passports that are two days past expiration, such is the ease of duplicating the document. After all, who doesn’t know at least half a dozen folks running around Iowa trying to pass themselves off as somebody else using a “potentially” forged passport just slightly out of expiration? It’s likely just as common as tits on a pumpkin.
“Welcoming” Platitudes Were as Abundant on the numbered waiting slip at the DMV as they were about the house at my sister’s place of residence.
There were many attempts to rectify this less than fortuitous situation. More than one of my friends back home got a front row seat to the ridiculousness as well as my personal angst and disgust which I was unable to suppress while getting involved in trying to help me solve this dilemma.
It turns out that the only quick resolution to my ‘illegal alien’ status is a trip to the New Orleans passport office, the ONLY place in the USA where this can be handled in a timely fashion:
Updated and edited to add: ONLY IF YOU HAVE A TICKET LEAVING THE US IN THE NEXT TEN DAYS, a little something I had forgotten about and which added another degree of difficulty to my life a short while down the road.
Me and my trusty companion Bandit are off to the gulf coast for the purpose of proving that I am not a foreign terrorist or Mexican immigrant. With my passport in hand I will be able to regain some semblance of a normal life in the US (bank account, driver’s license, job….). I’m glad to have found a quick course to the resolution of my troubles and a return to a normal life in the US, even as I’m painfully aware that there may never be a return to ‘normalcy’ for the ‘family’ I left behind in Iowa.
It’s a sad situation when the Iowa Department of Motor vehicles isn’t even allowed to check the Fort Dodge Senior High 1976 yearbook or accept the dozens of signed affidavits on my identity that I’m sure I could have collected from my many friends there in the city in order to ‘prove’ my identity, but we must remain HYPER vigilant against the communist ..err…Muslim threat.
I would have liked to open a business (or two or three) in Fort Dodge and maybe even paying some heavy taxes to help rebuild the blighted areas, but such is life. I doubt I’ll ever move back to Iowa after the fiasco I endured, unless I get a penchant for frostbite or pick up a really heavy methamphetamine habit.
Enjoy.
The Tim Channel 
hey i hear alot of tim bashing from people who are supposed to “LOVE” him my god listen to yourselfs sounds like 2 year olds on the playground let my give you some sage advice ..NEVER JUDGE another man TILL YOU have walked in HIS moccasins.and if you want to “AIR”family skeletons lets not do it in public forum omg how crass.
I wish they hadn’t been so crass either. That said, I don’t get ‘angry’ with them. I get even by setting the record straight. It is gobsmackingly idiotic of them to take up a losing cause with me when I am so open and prolific with the events of my life. Thanks for tossing in on my behalf. I have had it ‘up to here’ with their nonsense and sad as it is to have to air this dirty laundry, I will not let another generation pass with the illusion that I am some kind of a drug addled, out of control monster who has no way of making his way thru the world without their support. Enjoy.
i get a kick out of drug addled LMAO I take more meds a day than you can imagine …LMAO 23 pills a day and counting yet I remain alert and function just fine and my meds make marijana look like pipe tobaccoo
tim you are a good person and dont let the negative south sayers tell you dufferently I too am the black sheep of the family .and I for one dont follow anyones path but the one that brings me joy
Thanks for the kind words Vic. It’s all good. My life is an open book and theirs is a cluster#ck of immense proportion. I’m surprised they would be so foolish as to engage in such a way but I’m not done telling my side of the story by any means. I resisted the temptation that they could not. It’s game on now. Bring it. LOL. Enjoy.