Oh, the irony. A Long Island obituary writer is on a mission to prove to the government that she's not actually dead. Carol Combes of East Quogue, NY was sorting through the social security death index in June when she came across her name, date of birth, social security number and date of death. Pretty soon, her bank accounts and medicare were frozen, and her social security number began showing up on ancestry websites.
After numerous calls and producing hundreds of documents to prove to the government that Combes is in fact alive, they finally figured out that Combes' death was the mistake of an Alabama clerk who typed the wrong nine-digit social security number into the database. “To the Social Security Administration, you’re nothing but a number,” Combes said. “And when that number goes in, they should research it a little better." But even though they've discovered the problem, some of Combes' assets remain frozen. She should just be glad they didn't handle the situation like John Cleese and Eric Idle did:
