DMV

I feel like we're finally getting pretty settled here in Northern Virginia, as long as you don't count my basement full of unpacked boxes.  I've even gotten my new hideous VA driver's license.  And getting that was a treat.  I waited in line at the DMV for 45 minutes, only to be told I didn't have even close to all the necessary paperwork (who knew you needed a marriage license to register your car?).  I spent the evening gathering all the needed paperwork and put it in a folder.  I told Mitch to fill out the paperwork on the top that I'd left him and went to bed.  The next morning, I hustled the kids off to school, grabbed my folder, and headed for the line at the DMV.  Two hours.  They finally called my number and I triumphantly opened my folder to give them all the paperwork I'd collected. Only.  My husband saw the bills I'd put in there (to prove we really live here) and decided to be helpful and move them to the bill file.  But it's not over.  I went home (cursing and yelling in my car like a lunatic), grabbed the bills and went back for another hour of waiting, which is is when I found out he'd decided to be extra helpful and remove and re-file my birth certificate so it wouldn't get lost.  This is why my driver's license photo looks like an ID card for an insane asylum.  I'd show it to you, but then I'd have to kill you, and a lot of you are parents with young kids, so let's just say I'm keeping it to myself for the kids.


This story does have a happy ending involving rewarding myself with a pair of buttery leather  boots I've had my eye on, a bouquet of flowers bought by my "helpful" husband from some guy at the metro station (hey, at least they weren't carnations), and a nice bottle of wine.  Which, let's be honest, is pretty much how all our stories end, minus the boots and flowers.