Fun with Government

Part the First. Last month we were lured in by glossy brochures at the post office advertising "Passports, GET your passports here." We thought, Dylan doesn't have a passport! That could be us using that service. We soon put together the paperwork proving we were her parents (fingerprinting, DNA testing, that sort of thing) and trotted on down with our checkbook (for the state department part of the fee) and credit card (for the part of the fee that takes credit cards) in hand. They laughed at us, ha, for we had no appointment and it would be another month before we could get one. Last weekend, finally, all our dreams culminated in our appointment at the post office. Where we walked up to the counter, handed the woman our paperwork, and were done in less time than it took the man next to us to pick out stamps. And I didn't even mention the part where we spent an hour and a half at Walmart because it was the only place we could figure out that takes passport pictures.

Part the Second. We got a notice in the mail a few weeks ago that our house was being reappraised, and someone was to be at home at 10am on some random Tuesday. I don't know how other people who have real jobs deal with stuff like that, but luckily none of us do (Snuffy! make yourself useful, dog) so it's not a problem. Apparently it was supposed to be done right after we bought the house because the appraiser kept asking Aaron about things like the sale price and taxes and Aaron would reply, huh, so he finally asked when we had moved in and Aaron told him it had been almost four years and that cleared things up, except for why it took four years for the county to find us. I think it was the invisibility cloak I got for the yard.