The FBI Wants To Know About My Birthday Present

I have decided, as a birthday gift for myself, to do what I have been wanting to do for quite some time and change my last name to my Grandmother’s maiden name.

It’s quite the interesting process.

I have to be fingerprinted at the police station or, as my Mom says, "anyplace they fingerprint bad guys," so the FBI and the CBI can run background checks on me to make sure I’m not trying to create an alias to escape something I did to land me on the wall of the United States Postal Service nationwide. (Does anyone actually flip through those things?)

Then there is mucho paperwork with instructions to carefully follow which I have to file with the court. After that, I have to pay to publish it in the Greeley Tribune legal ads for a certain amount of time to make it super official. All in all, it ends up being $50. Not bad. Interesting but a good gift for myself.

I’m sure, just like when I go buy decent lingerie for myself, I will be entertained with questions of whether or not I am getting married. This is so irritating. People do both of said things for reasons other than getting married. I understand the name change situation more than I do the lingerie one. I was not aware that only people going on honeymoons bought lingerie. Pardon moi for trying to be classy and have pretty things in my wardrobe. I suppose department store clerks think single people are dirty tomcats who mate in dumpsters behind 7-11? Okay, some are but only a small percentage. Those people will always do that, even when they are married, if they ever get married. It’s a lifestyle thing, not a marital status thing. My point is that single people do things like buy decent lingerie and change their last names all the time for various reasons. Married people don’t have the monopoly on that like they do cheap groceries and tax breaks.

I just want my name to reflect the part of my family I feel closest to and relate the most to. It will be a constant reminder every day of the woman I look up to most and whose spirit I feel around me and in my blood. If I am half the lady Alberta Louise York was, I will feel I have lived up to her legacy and made her proud.