Editorials

Getting a Real ID in TN – final entry (probably)

When last we left mid April, I’d been informed the original location we were scheduled for was having an issue. They closed the facility down. We were at $40-80 invested in replacement birth certificates, and we had scheduled a month and a half out for a Tennessee Real ID appointment.

I got a call from the state of Tennessee at one point telling me the facility I had my appointment at no longer existed and it was unexpected. They offered to put me and Kim in a spot that was two weeks out, but we had appointments already for basically the same timeframe so we were cool.

I’d created an appointment using a different IP, Kim had created an appointment using the home one, we’d created them half an hour apart and managed to get appointments one after the other. Any attempts to see the appointments or manage any information was met with error messages that I’d received the last time.

The day arrives

We showed up at the DMV late. Oh, we left with enough time to be there half an hour early, a semi flipped, a car wrecked, and other things that should not have happened. You know what, we still got to wait because appointments don’t really mean anything there (you can check in online which we’d done) – 40 or so minutes past the appointment time was my turn.

Per the instructions on the page I’d brought proof of social security number, two forms of establishing ID (which were bills,) birth certificate. I additionally brought taxes/W2 and a couple of other establishing documents (passport, other TN id, etc).

That birth certificate I had to pay for, never used. The piece of paper with my SSN printed on it, scanned. Passport scanned. All the residence establishing ID I had to produce, never used because my address was correct on my driver’s license. I mean I brought a mound of paperwork as the website had requested and all they wanted was passport, SSN card, old driver’s license.

And it was done. They took my license, printed me up the fakest looking paper license I’ve ever seen, and that was that.

At last I’d not have to worry about getting on a plane to see the inlaws later this year.

And then homeland security did this. Actually, this happened a couple of days before our visit to the DMV, but yeah. Just saw that today.

Yup, our attempts to get a Real ID so we could travel by plane after October, nope… May 3, 2023 moved implementation back a year and a half. Real ID licenses arrived in the mail about 10 days later.

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Paul E King

Paul King started with GoodAndEVO in 2011, which merged with Pocketables, and as of 2018 he's evidently the owner. He lives in Nashville, works at a film production company, is married with two kids. Facebook | Twitter | Donate | More posts by Paul | Subscribe to Paul's posts

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