While still in my new year high energy I decided to schedule an appointment at the Washington Department of Licencing to get my enhanced identification, otherwise known as REAL ID, before the final, final FINAL, for SURE this time, FINAL deadline of May 7, 2025. I figured I’d best be prepared just in case I get to fly somewhere fancy.
Or to Dalton, Georgia.
Anyhow, I read up on the documentation required and had my current license, my birth certificate, my social security card, a mortgage statement with my full name on it to show that I lived where my license says I live, and even a copy of my baptism certification, which I didn’t even know I had in our little safe were we keep our records. Perhaps I needed proof of a little one-time holiness at the DOL for good measure.
It’s good to be prepared.
Grant drove me there, mainly because it was a sunny Friday afternoon and we were both mostly done with our work stuff.
I hopped out of Grant’s truck and said “wish me luck!” like I was going to take a test.
As I was walking in, a woman about my age was coming out and she had an enormous scowl on her face. I smiled at her rather righteously, secretly thinking to myself that she clearly hadn’t read the instructions for her REAL ID and did not come prepared with the correct documents like I had.
I waltzed into the room, lipstick on and hair perfect (for my picture) and smiled at the check-in person. With a winning smile, I said “Hi there! I have an appointment at 1 pm. My appointment number is 74543Z and my name is Heather Dilliner Siwinski!” I was curtly given a piece of paper with the number 249 and told to take a seat and wait for my number to be called.
Five minutes later, right at 1 pm, my number was called out loud by a computerized voice several times, as I skipped across the room like Little Red Riding Hood, to a frowning young woman who said: “License.” I handed it to her along with my other documents with a confident smirk. She flipped through everything, looked at me with literal disgust on her face and said “where is your marriage certificate?”
“Ummm. What?”
“The name on your birth certificate doesn’t match your other documentation.”
“Nowhere did I read that I needed to show my marriage certificate!”
She flung a piece of paper with the requirements to get a REAL ID and told me to come back when I had the proper documentation.
Stunned, I looked at the piece of paper. Number 3 clearly said “Name Change (If Applicable)”. I had clearly skipped right over that section because I didn’t think it was applicable to me. I have had the name Heather Dilliner Siwinski for over thirty three years. Longer than I had my first name, Heather Lynn Dilliner. It seemed completely irrelevant. I mean, what in the flying fuck?!
Under the description of number three it said to bring AS MANY of the following documents AS NECESSARY that connect the two names and one of those was a marriage certificate. The other items were a court order for a name change, a divorce decree, and a certificate of citizenship or naturalization, which I need to look up the difference between.
In the almost thirty four years of being married, never ONCE have I needed to show anyone my marriage certificate. I had to show my birth certificate to get a passport in 1988 (which is now very expired and obsolete) and again in 1991 to get a new social security card with my new name, under which, I might add, I have SINCE been paying taxes, including social security taxes. One would think that the social security card would be the be all get all thing that the government cares about. I mean isn’t it really just about making sure the government gets paid?
Anyhow, undaunted, and still feeling a little bit smug, though not smiling when I left the DOL, I hopped back into the truck and told Grant: “For some reason they want me to prove that I am married to you. I have suddenly stepped back into the 1960’s when women needed their husband or their dad in order to get a credit card. But I happen to know where our marriage license is because I finally organized the fourteen bins of paperwork that came with the move to the new house twenty years ago. You’re welcome by the way. Now let’s get home and find that baby and try again.”
As luck would have it the marriage license was also in the safe AND the afternoon was slow at the DOL so I was able to get another appointment an hour later.
I strolled in with a smile for the NEW person at the check-in who had a much better disposition. “Second times a charm!” I said. And he gave me a thumbs up and the number 337. Eighty-eight people had been served by the DOL during the hour and half between my appointments. This time it only took THREE minutes to get another NEW person at the same station I went to before. Apparently DOL people need breaks every hour. It’s hard work having to be all bossy with people about the proper paperwork. I handed her all my documentation, including my marriage license, with a grandiose fling. She looked at everything and said, “Oh darn! This is not a legal marriage license.”
I blinked about four times in deep inner conflict. It would not help to rage at this woman. SHE didn’t make the silly patriarchal rules. And I’m not typically a raging kind of person, though for sure tested at the moment. I calmly and slowly said “What do you mean this is not a legal document? It says Marriage Certificate issued by the State of Washington, Spokane County right here!” pointing at the words.
“There is no stamp by the county auditor. It’s not official. This certificate is to just hang on your wall, all nice and pretty like.”
This time, after saying thank you, I literally STORMED out the door and hopped BACK into the truck. “Who KNEW that after all this time of staying strong in our so-called vows that we are not even legally married. I just. Can’t. Even. All of our children are now officially bastards.”
Grant, rolling with it said “I guess we are going to have to legally have all their birth certificates changed to the last name ‘Snow’. Also, some of them were bastards before it was official. So I suppose this is fitting.”
We drove home, me ranting off and on, and staring at the worthless piece of paper that once meant something, even though I had only recently discovered we even had it. Grant’s best man and my maid of honor (my sister) were the witnesses. And right there it said we had been married on September 7th…and I GASPED…this was the WRONG DATE. Not one person caught the fact that it said September 7th and we were ACTUALLY married on September 14th.
Supposedly.
I mean who actually knows.
“My life is in shambles, Grant! I don’t even know WHO I AM. All these years I have been living as Heather Dilliner Siwinski and it turns out that it was all a farce. I don’t BLAME the government for not wanting to give me a REAL ID. I’m not fit to roam about the continent without a real name or a husband to vouch for me. I mean this piece of paper is false. Does this mean I can stop paying my taxes? Should we start dating other people to make sure we are meant for each other before we actually commit? I didn’t even WANT to change my name but my dad told me it would be disrespectful if I didn’t.”
He let me rant and rave for the rest of the evening about the patriarchy and the government trying to stop me from living my best life as a fancy free jetsetter and how maybe when we hit forty years of “living in sin” together, we could get hitched by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas, who I’m SURE would get us the legal documents we need, and how in the meantime I would have to just go on the lam and live off the land. A nomad: the ‘real me’ completely unidentifiable.
And then a few days later I stopped ranting (until now) and logged on to the Spokane County website and ordered an official marriage certificate for $4. It arrived three days later, a black and white COPY of the exact same marriage certificate, only now with the official stamp of Vicky M Dalton, the Spokane County Auditor. My fake marriage certificate for the wrong day is now legally binding by a woman’s signature who doesn’t even know me. Do you see the craziness of it all? It does make a person have empathy for people who don’t have any records to prove who they are, where they were born, and who they are married to. Who knew a $4.00 embossed stamp held the power to prove you exist.
But at least now I will be able to fly to Dalton Georgia after May 7th, should I get the gumption. Even better: we now have cause for two celebrations each year. One for the fake anniversary and one for the real anniversary. Which one should we invite the fake Elvis to, to make it even more legit?
peaceof8 
OMG. This had me laughing so hard I was crying. The best laugh I’ve had in a while.
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