The Bar Card

Big changes are a coming.  I just gave my two weeks’ notice at work and we're going to be moving to Hoboken, NJ.  I'm also heading into the uncharted territory of being a stay-at-home mom (I have a lot of feelings about that which I will relay in the coming blog weeks). For now though, I have a bone to pick with the municipality of Hoboken.

In order to have some extra cash on hand as well as some adult interaction, I've decided to work a couple of nights a week at a local bar (We'll get into that later too). If you want to work at a bar in the city of Hoboken you need to have what is known as a "Bar Card". It looks like a school ID and basically testifies that I'm over 18; wouldn't it be nice if we already had some sort of national way to do that? Like maybe...a drivers' license? In order to obtain said Bar card you need to first go to the Hoboken Police department with a $50.00 money order where you fill out a piece of paper.  Then you call a phone number that they give you to make an appointment for finger prints which will run you an additional $60.00 dollars.

Ok, I break out in hives when I have to deal with bureaucracy and those who've seen me lately can attest to that (nothing like the scent of calamine lotion on a woman). But the whole process sounds simple enough, just go fill out the paper and get the prints right? Well the police department only allows a 3 hour window each day in which you can fill out the paperwork (What you'll only rob me 3 hours out of the day? That's sweet). Thankfully I showed up in the correct time frame (a very rare occurrence) and there was already line of little young girlie girls who wanted to work at the bar. One of them actually had fingerprints taken for substitute teaching and they wouldn't accept it (like we had any question before that this was just a money making ploy). As we're filling out the paper work I see that a few of the girls are already on hold with the finger print company. So I grabbed my phone, which was about to die (why not?) and get into the queue. We're in a pretty small waiting room and the questions they ask are pretty standard like "name", "birth date" then she asked for my weight, not once but twice she asked. Why do you need to know this so badly? I'm sitting in a room of 5 pound 20 year olds (one of them was wearing a belly shirt for the love of god) and you want me to announce how much I weigh?  I mean I've done a damn good job on weight watchers but not good enough to make an announcement. So I swallowed my pride and whispered the magic number into the phone, which actually caused more of a stir than if I just said it plainly.

The only appointment I could make that fit my work schedule was 2 hours away! Thankfully I took care of that and now I'm patiently awaiting the 5 business it takes to get the ID made. Then I get to go back to the police department during the 3 hour window all just so I have the privilege to work in the city.

Thanks Hoboken.