The Kentucky State Policeman asked the driver of the car he pulled over: “You have any ID?” The driver responded, “’bout what?”

I went and applied for work today. Made it through the whole process. I’m drug-free and my background investigation is clear. I’m all ready to be hired. I even took two forms of identification as requested.

Well, I took the wrong two forms of ID. It seems a California driver’s license and a retired ID card from the Navy are not enough. I needed my passport or my Social Security card, too. Alas, I stopped carrying my Social Security card years ago. I’d been told it was safer to prevent ID theft. And I don’t make it a point to carry my passport to the San Fernando Valley … this time I forgot. Mea culpa.

All of this is required to ensure I am a legal resident or citizen. So I have an ID card that will get me on any military base, and I can drive there with my legal driver’s license. I just can’t get a job with those two identification forms. You see, they come from the same list.

I needed a single item from list “A” or one item each from list “B” and “C.” The two items I took were both from list “B.” A Social Security card is on list “C.” Of course, the Social Security card won’t gain me entrance into any place.

Where do we get such stupid laws and regulations? Maybe it is good we had an election Tuesday. I hope we are moving toward representatives who will look at stupid regulations like this and stop the insanity.

No wonder the unemployment rate isn’t decreasing. The regulations to get a job legally are endless.

Of course, while I was in that particular employment agency, the other applicants were not speaking English. What has happened? I don’t resent them getting jobs. I applaud their efforts. I just don’t understand the documentation I must have. Me, a citizen of the United States since birth. Thirty-six years of service in the Navy. And since my forms of ID are not from separate lists, I can’t get a minimum-wage job.

At least I can get on any military base in the area and visit old friends without a problem.

As I looked at the election returns, I saw that some folks were actually thinking about how they are voting. I can only hope that for once, I voted for the winners.

I think there should be a moratorium on any elected body from making new laws until they clean out some of the bad ones. We have enough laws. Maybe it is time we flushed many of them down the sewer of bad laws – and regulations.

Maybe it isn’t true, but does it seem to you like we add more rules and laws and regulations but never seem to get rid of the bad ones? By the time the average person jumps through all of the hoops just to get some paperwork filled out to get a job – you can see the problem.

I had to fill out a long list of questions about drug and alcohol use and abuse. On some of those I wanted to answer, “No I haven’t done any of that, but I’m willing to learn.” Now that we have a president who has used illegal drugs (a lot), what does it matter, anyway? If the guy in that job can have a past like he has, why can’t I? Oh – we don’t really know his past; the records have not been released.

As I write this, it appears we could have a 25th Congressional District runoff between two Republicans. Gee, one lives in the district and the other doesn’t. Imagine if the one who does live here wins in November by one vote – his vote. At least it wouldn’t be a tie. But the winner could win by his own vote … interesting. (Caused by yet another stupid law.)

Just how could our long-term congressman endorse someone outside the district? Strange things afoot, indeed.

As for me, I’m off to the employment agency with my proper documentation. Off to prove that something without my picture proves I am me.

I wonder if I show them this column, they’ll let me get a new I-9 form? Never hurts to try.

You know, I voted yesterday without showing any identification. Didn’t need an I-9 to do that. But maybe we should require IDs to vote – and to ensure we all do vote, maybe we should make it a requirement. If you don’t vote, you don’t get services. I’ll bet voter turnout would skyrocket.

But showing an ID is not good for the election process. It is good for just about everything else we do.

Funny that we work things like we do. I’ll have to file this in a place I’ll remember it: right next to my passport and Social Security card.

Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com and his commentaries, published on Tuesdays and Sundays, are archived at DManzer.com. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].