What's In A Name?

A whole bunch of boring paperwork, waiting, and grumpy government workers, it turns out.

In honor of our eleven month (already?!) anniversary, I thought I'd share my thrilling journey of how I've finally gotten around to changing my name. I thought it'd be fun. Silly me.

First stop was the Social Security office. Evan and I gathered up all of our documents into a nifty manila folder, and set out, totally oblivious to what awaited us. We went in and were met with a cop, who gruffly told us to check in, get a number, and join the other million (or 55) people in what is probably the drabbest, most depressing little room I've ever seen. There were 13 little windows, and apparently, they only thought to have people working in oh, four of them.

"This window is just for show." Seriously.

After thirty minutes of watching the same bald eagle cartoon character tell us about the dangers of carrying your SS card with you (even though every single person in the room had it with them), Evan started up a game of Scrabble on his phone, and that helped pass the next 45 minutes. We finally were called, and a grumpy lady who reminded me far too much of Roz in Monsters, Inc., took our paperwork, said that we'd had a "relatively short wait," (seriously?!) and was done with us in 5 minutes. She actually went so fast that she had to raise her eyebrows at us and say, "Yeeeesss?" Evan and I were still in a relative stupor from having sat for so long that we didn't realize she was all finished. Needless to say, we hightailed it out of there.

Once I got my new SS card (with my new name, yay!) I decided that I needed a new license (also, it was about to expire. Thank goodness that checkout lady at Safeway told me!)  Again, I prepared all of my necessary paperwork after navigating the website, calling them to double check, and checking the website again. Needless to say that I didn't want to make this trip twice. The DMV, I've decided, is where happiness goes to die. I had thought that the Social Security office was the worst, but noooo, I was wrong. Again, the beige walls, the government propaganda posters, the lighting developed to make you look sickly, and of course, old grumpy ladies in droves. Oh, and the DMV had the fortune to add in a bunch of terrified and awkward  but trying to look cool 16 year-olds getting their licenses. People who didn't have a phone to play with while waiting were forced to share a Harbor Freight Tools ad. Luckily, I had my phone, but after obsessively checking Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, and Tumblr for an hour, my phone started making desperate dying noises in the form of extraordinarily high beeps that earned me glares from the Grumps at the counters.

It actually says "Expect long wait..." at the bottom. At least they're honest. Oh, and when I got there, they were "serving" number 205.  

I've learned in this process that government loves loves loves lines. The DMV was no exception. There was a line when I first walked in, and then after a 1.5 hour wait, another line to be seen, and then another line to get my picture taken. Once they handed me my interim license, I honestly asked, "Where do I go now?" and the kind (sarcasm, here) man pointed to the door. So I made my way to the door, garnering envious looks from the people in the first line, and out to my car, where I honestly had to squint in the natural light. I felt like a prisoner finally set free. And, a prisoner with a new license picture! The last one I had made me look like a freakish sumo-wrestler. No, really. It was awful. While seeing that I had a new name on my license felt pretty darn nifty, seeing a picture that didn't make me wince every time I saw it was even better. Thank goodness, because I have to deal with it for the next eight years!

Sayonara, Sumo wrestler! Hello, new name!

In all seriousness, I now hold two pieces of identification that say I am a Tyler, which means a lot to me, as it makes me feel like I am officially a part of two families that I absolutely adore.  And I love that kept my maiden name as my middle name, because it means that I can keep an important part of my culture and past with me. Also, it means I get a middle name! I've never had one, so now it's great that my mother now has one to yell at me when I'm in trouble (kidding! She had zero problems yelling at me when I was trouble sans a middle name). It only took eleven months, smiling insanely hard at the Grumps so they wouldn't glare too hard at me, and close to three hours of my life sitting in the least comfortable chairs ever created.  

And, it was all totally worth it!