beware the smallpox outbreak! :P

Got up early this morning so I could go to the Social Security office to try to obtain Ben’s SSN (thought I needed it to do my taxes..), but he hasn’t been assigned one yet.  I left laughing, though, and this is why:

SS Clerk: When you come back, you’ll need to bring his stamped birth certificate and his shot records as proof of his ID.

Me: Well, he won’t have a shot record.

SS Clerk: You aren’t getting him his shots?

Me: Nope.

SS Clerk: Even with all the smallpox and chicken pox going around?!

Me:

I waited to burst out laughing until I got out to my car, then I laughed my ass off all the way home.  Smallpox?  Really?  I’m still laughing about it.  Yes, I would indeed be a bit wary of smallpox if it hadn’t been nearly eradicated almost forty years ago!  As for chicken pox….pfft.  Bring it on.  We’d LOVE to have chicken pox in this house. 

Seriously.  I’ve got no problem if someone wants to question the way I parent my kids.  It’s no skin off my back and doesn’t bother me a damn bit because I know it’s just talk.  But, they would be a little more credible in their criticism if they actually knew which diseases were vaccinated against.  Ha.  

Anyway, I don’t really need Ben’s SSN to file my taxes, which is a darn good thing because they told me at the office it could be another seven weeks before he gets it.  My MIL, who is doing our taxes this year, said we could just fill in "has been applied for" in the SSN box, so yay.  So, we’re going in the morning to do the taxes, and then I can finish up my financial aid paperwork on Wednesday.