Yesterday, I had the privilege of spending 4 freaking hours of my life driving around the greater Florissant area to change my name. Let me just begin by saying, if the belief that marriage is truly "until death do us part" was not enough, this changing of my name hassle definitely solidifies that Dan is stuck with me. Forever. I am NEVER doing this again.
Last week, I ordered a "name change kit," which I still feel like was mostly worth it... They sent me all of the paperwork, with directions, for all of the places I need to contact to change my name. I found that helpful. They sent paperwork for my Social Security Card, my license, my passport, and general forms to use to let school, the bank, everyone else know my name has changed. I got all of the paperwork filled out over the weekend, so I was ready to go yesterday!
After my run, I showered and hit the road. I started off strong at the Social Security Office. It did take 30 min of waiting (which, btw...you have to be on your game there! You sign in on a computer with your reason for being there, they give you a number, and you wait...BUT! they have 3 different number systems going on. The whole time you are waiting, you have to stay focused or you'll miss it! "172 to window 2, S331 to the door, G14 to window 4." It was a busy place). The workers were friendly, though, and it was easy to get everything figured out. My new SS card should be arriving in 10-ish days.
Next was the freaking "licensing center." In IL that is known as the DMV...so you know it was fun. um. not. Changing the name on my car title was easy-peasy, but getting in the second line to get my new license turned into a freaking cluster efff. Apparently, to change my name, I needed a piece of mail. Now, I should have probably verified on their website...I get it...but my kit did NOT mention this! They have already verified my address, that's how it is on my license. So I went to the car to find a random piece of mail - woo! a sallie mae statement. "We can't use this, it is over 60 days old." ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?! You realize my car title/registration that you all JUST gave me over there has this address, my license has this address, my marriage license has this address, that sallie mae bill has this address. Nope. Not good enough. YOU SUCK.
So I gave up and went to the post office. You know the world is not right when the post office people are the highlight of your day. Super friendly. I feel like they always are at this post office, and I really appreciate that. I had all my paperwork filled out, so they took me in the back, took my new passport photo, made sure I had everything I needed, charged me nearly an arm and a leg for the picture and first class mail, and sent it off. Easy as pie. I appreciated that experience.
I was feeling good again! So I went home to grab a more recent sallie mae statement, and something that the bank had sent me, and went to a different licensing office (the perks of living in a big city...they are thrown about). Anyways, I showed up, and what I brought wasn't good enough. At least this lady was nice about it. Apparently, in Jan, MO decided you needed a mailed bank statement, a mailed paystub, a mailed utility bill, a voter registration card, or a mailed mortgage statement. Well, guess what. My bank statements are all electronic, along with my paystubs (hello! have you heard of being green?!) I couldn't tell you where my voter registration card is. Oops. My name is not on a single bill that comes to our house. The friendly lady told me to go to the bank and have them print something out. Now I am just going to go ahead and say it. That makes absolutely NO sense to me. I also overheard someone saying "well, if you live with so and so, you can bring their mail with a statement that you live with them." Oh, yeah, that makes sense! A note from some rando is better than my student loan statements. MO, you are DUMB! So I begrudgingly went to the bank...which was an experience in and of itself. The lady was all sorts of confused. She wanted me to go change my license name so she could change the name at the bank. Well, darling, that won't work...I need this first! After she figured it all out, she got a statement printed for me. I went back to the licensing office, she scanned the stupid thing, and said my license will have the same picture, the name will change, and it will be here in 10-ish days.
It. Was. A. Ridiculous. Day.
So yeah, I stopped by the ice cream place that I literally passed 6 times for dinner. I couldn't help it. I needed it. And it was good.
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