I don't know if I'm having one of my hyper-literal moments, or if this is some other neurodiversity thing, but I can't make sense of the last paragraph... Can someone help explain it to me?
The way I read it is:
* 219-09-9999 is a made-up number that was never issued to anyone.
* The woman thought it was her number for unexplained reasons.
* She used the pamphlet as evidence that it was her number.
I must be missing something important. Is it a joke, with the punchline being that she thought the pamphlet was her social security card? If so, how was this the fault of the Board? Was it her SSN somehow? If so, how did the pamphlet prove it?
Looks right to me. She received a document from the Social Security Board with a made up SSN on it, and thought it was hers.
It's not a joke, just an example of how people can get confused by real-looking fake numbers.
This can be said to be the fault of the board in the sense that after dealing with the 1938 incident they could have learned that this is confusing to some people, and for example printed 219-09-XXXX instead.
I think the joke was she tried to use the pamphlet as evidence and thought the pamphlet was personally addressed to her - "how silly!"
I too had a hyper literal moment on this too, so I'm glad you asked. My conclusion is that the joke just isn't that funny or well written (everyone's a critic!:))
She was given a pamphlet with the image of a card. She thought pamphlets had different numbers and were used to attribute SSNs. Twenty years later she tried to use it and when it wasn’t accepted she said “look, this is the number you gave to me”.
The way I read it is:
* 219-09-9999 is a made-up number that was never issued to anyone.
* The woman thought it was her number for unexplained reasons.
* She used the pamphlet as evidence that it was her number.
I must be missing something important. Is it a joke, with the punchline being that she thought the pamphlet was her social security card? If so, how was this the fault of the Board? Was it her SSN somehow? If so, how did the pamphlet prove it?