It's OFFICIAL!

I am a timely, mostly prompt person. I am held accountable to the second with my occupation. When Tad and I went to The Fulton County Probate Court to apply for our Marriage License, we were told by the lovely lady that we would have the official certificate within 4 weeks of our wedding.

I don't like being lied to. SO, after the 28th day with no official certificate in the mail, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Part of the reason I had taken so much time off from work in November was to tie up loose ends after the wedding. I would be in charge of most of the combining of the two homes, returning duplicate wedding gifts and of course, changing my name. 4 weeks. I can't accomplish the last task without the official wedding certificate. I begin by calling. After a bit of governmental run around, I get my grimy hands on the phone number to the probate clerk. She won't answer her phone. She doesn't return calls as promised on her voicemail. Her sheer will to ignore is impressive. She had no idea what was in store for her. I was on a mission. I had to get to the bottom of this as I couldn't bear to hear my hubby ask every day "Did anything from Fulton County come in the mail" with anticipation and disappointment growing each day.

On day 31, I hopped in the car and decided to get to the bottom of things at The Fulton County Probate Court. This is what I encountered:






The woman behind the desk was clearly not impressed with my mission. She spoke in a tongue that only an ewok could understand. She was so large that moving from the desk would be an undertaking in itself. She truly didn't give a darn that it had been 31 days and we still didn't have our official certificate. She suggested that I "call back". I asked if 404.730.4685 was the proper number to call. She looked mortified that I had it memorized. It was the correct number. I asked if Bonnie had an ability to call out i.e. return calls. She did. I was told they were "backed up". They would get to me when they got to me. Then she said it. "We didn't get no license in the mail." Oh, the dreaded double negative. Had I taken the time to explain grammatically what she had just said I knew we would never get our certificate. I went home and decided to wait it out.

I called our wedding coordinator from the church, who assured me that she mailed the signed certificate herself from the post office. She also assured me that Fulton County is notoriously slow and that she knew getting the certificate could take over 6 weeks. Ugh. The probate court lady told us no more than 4!

I am dropping it. Combining 2 homes isn't supposed to be this hard. It gets to be when Fulton County is sooooooo slow.

Then it happened. On the 42nd day, 6 weeks to the day after our wedding our Official Certificate arrived in the mail. We are officially recorded. Now I get to go speak with the lovely people at Social Security. I will have my ewok thesaurus in hand.