I just got to the airport, and discovered that my driver's license isn't in my wallet.

I had to use a company badge for ID, and got a thorough screening in security, and have no idea how I'll rent a car in LA. Unless Patricia can find it at home and overnight it to me, I may be without a car there. I've no idea where it is, though it may be on my nightstand, taken out of my pocket after my last trip.

What a way to start a trip.

[Update in the evening in LA]

Yup. I had taken it out of my shirt pocket, where it resided during my trip home the last time, and put it on my nightstand (where Patricia found it upon getting home from work), and then neglected to put it back in my wallet the next day. She's Fedexing it to me, so I'll have a car by Thursday. One useful definition of hell is being in LA sans auto.

The only reason that it was in my shirt pocket, instead of in my wallet, is that under the new idiotic security regime, one never knows when there will be a demand for papers, and it's more convenient to pull the license out of a shirt pocket than to have to pull the wallet out and dig for it there.

And I don't currently have a passport because it mysteriously disappeared on a trip shortly after September 11, when I got pulled out of line for a severe screening (for no obvious reason--I'd like to think that it's because I look sort of swarthy and semitic, but that theory is blown out of the water by the fact that one of my co-screenees was a young blonde woman). I had the passport before the screening--when I got off the plane at the other end, it was gone.

Thanks a lot, Homeland Security!

You can always steal a car...

There's always that moment in a business trip when you realize what it was you forgot. And there is always something. You know it even as you're packing. But you don't know what it will be until that moment hits and then you smack your head because you remember remembering to bring whatever it was you forgot.

Sign up for Hertz Gold or similar so they can keep your driver's license on file.

Change your address and get a new Driver's licence issued.

Keep a passport in your briefcase.

I've got hertz gold, but they still check
a driver's license when you leave the lot.

I like the stealing a car option, but it's
difficult to get a gun through security...it's
hard to jack a car with just a pointed finger.

OUTTA THE CAR, I'M A BLOGGER, BITCH

"I like the stealing a car option, but it's
difficult to get a gun through security...it's
hard to jack a car with just a pointed finger."

A laptop can be an effective weapon when used properly.

I would also point out that you can steal an _unoccupied_ car.

Learning how to boost a car is a useful skill.

I'm for implanted ID chips. They'd be a lot more convenient than obsolete paper identification.

I forgot my driver's license before a vacation one year. The wife had to do all the driving in the rental car.

A cornucopia of thoughts:

1. The convenience of keeping your DL in your shirt pocket instead of your wallet is disproved by the ease with which you can lose it. You don't have to do it a lot for it to be majorly annoying.
2. Bringing a gun. Uh, it's the easiest thing in the world to bring a gun thru security. You bring it right up to the ticket counter, declare it, have TSA verify it is unloaded, put it back in it's case, pu the case in your suitcase, and check the suitcase.
3. It's not necessary to move. In MA, you can get a dupe DL for $15. Under certain circumstances they don't even mark it "Duplicate" (aside: why do c-stores not like dupes for age verification? The stated reason doesn't make sense. maybe I really did lose it and it's a legitimate copy!)