Thanks, Osama!
Feb 28th, 2008 at 11:03 am by Maya
So I told this story to Susie at lunch yesterday and she insisted I post it.
Today I went to court to have my name reverted to my maiden name before my wedding next month. “Why go to so much trouble,” you ask?
Simple: convenience.
In New Jersey, when you go to the DMV, you have to bring your entire legal history in order to meet their vile little 6 point ID verification requirement. I spent some time in line once behind someone in a second marriage, and she was sent back home, not allowed to renew her license without her 1) birth certificate 2) first marriage certificate 3) first divorce decree 4) second marriage certificate.
Ugh.
I am simply not that reliable. I have a remarkable ability to misplace important papers for years on end. Inevitably, if I’m required to tote around a small filing cabinet of important paperwork in order to maintain a valid drivers license, some freak accident will occur which will render said paperwork into a soggy, smoking pile of kibble and I will wind up driving illegally while mailing off for all manner of out of state paperwork. The one exception to this is my birth certificate, which is evidently capable of surviving being chewed by a slobbering hellhound during a nuclear holocaust, because I have managed to keep the same one my entire life despite the ineffable glory that is my Personal Chaos Field.
So. To have the luxury of paperwork convenience in the long run, I must of course endure a great deal of paperwork inconvenience in the short run.
In order to have my maiden name on the marriage application, I must provide a photo ID. Which means I must get a photo ID. Which means that I must also buy my plane tickets using my maiden name. Which means that I couldn’t buy my plane tickets until after my name change, just to be sure. All of which also means that in another month I’ll be back in line at the DMV getting yet another drivers license.
Which, before September 11, 2001 wasn’t such a pain in the ass, meaning I wouldn’t have had to bother to revert in the first place. No, it’s not on the same level (okay, not even the same dimension) as the death and destruction, but it’s still in its own way an important contribution to the overall baseline evil on the planet.
Stuff most guys don’t ever have to worry about.
Congrats on your upcoming wedding!
I never changed my name, so I don’t have to worry about it, either.
This is the horrible place where “Real ID” gets tangled up in “Verified Voting”. Brought to you by your fiendly neighborhood brownshirt GOPers.
Deny drivers licenses to anyone whose “papers are not in order”, and then deny voting to anyone without a drivers license.
My mom doesn’t have a birth certificate. Born at home in a midwest farm many years ago. Courthouse burned down. To get a passport (decades ago) an older sister had to be flown out and swear that my mom was indeed born as claimed. That sister, while still alive, isn’t doing so well these days.
This, for a woman that personally shook hands with Harry Truman. I just hope she’s up to the fight.
Um. Okay, you changed your name the first time. You were young, you hadn’t thought it throught, whatever. But why the heck are you changing it again? I don’t mean to be rude, but hello? If your story sounds bizarre to you, it is, and not for anything that has to do with New Jersey.