DMV, How I Dislike Thee
Things I learned at the DMV today:
I have the same phone as an 11 year-old girl.
They don’t give two shits.
I wanted a new driver’s license. We’ve moved and when writing my new address on the back in Sharpie it smudged. And my name isn’t quite right. My passport, my water bill, Audrey and I headed to the DMV. I took ticket #255. We’re on #239. Okay. I can breathe through this.
I get my turn and begin to explain to the worker that legally, as one can see in my US issued, valid passport my name is (let’s pretend because my maiden name is crazy uncommon) Catherine Louise Smith Williams. My maiden name is Smith. My married name is Williams. It’s not hyphenated. It’s not two last names. Actually, it’s two middle names. The IRS likes to call me Catherine L. Williams. My payroll calls me Catherine L. S. Williams. I commonly go by Catherine Williams. My driver’s license says Catherine L. Smith Williams. And herein lies the problem. Seven years ago after getting married I still had a tie to my maiden name, Smith, and wanted it reflected on my driver’s license. At the time, at that office, rather than making my entire middle name show up on my license (there’s plenty of physical space) someone chose to put my maiden name (my legal middle name) in the last name field to get it to display.
Now? I don’t care so much about my maiden name. I care more that my voter registration is incorrect. My county pulls its records from the DMV. The DMV says my last name is Smith Williams. It is not. Nor has it ever been.
Worker tells me I need a certified document stating that my last name is Smith and not Smith Williams like in her system. I point to my US issued, valid passport. No, she needs something else. I ask what could that be? My birth certificate surely doesn’t have my married name. My social security card looks exactly like my passport. And my marriage license doesn’t have my married name because in Alabama you sign the license at application time and therefore sign with your current legal name. So, my marriage license says Catherine Louise Smith.
To which she replies, “I cannot help you if you’re going to get upset.”
And I said, “You cannot help me because you’re not interested in helping me.”
And we left.
In hindsight, I’m sure she has lots of 9/11 rules governing her life. But my name change on my passport was post-9/11 and they managed to muddle through somehow.
Now I am bound & determined to get a new license. What forms, other than my US issued, valid passport should I take? According to their site, a passport is a stand-alone document and proves identity, name, age and lawful presence.
… and some time passed …
egads! Now I worry that I’m not really a Williams at all. What if I did the marriage certificate wrong? And only convinced the guy at the social security admin that I could change my name because he had never seen an AL marriage license before?
