Moving Pains

Considering how much Oregon has to gain by adding new taxpayers to its ranks, one would have thought that the process of becoming a naturalized Oregonian would be fast, easy, and fun. Or at least cheap. In reality, I suppose that might have been a viable hope only if the government hadn't been involved, and if I always behaved like a responsible adult.

As it was, my hope of an easy transition was quelled within two weeks of our move. That was when I realized that I couldn't prove to the government that I was a legal resident of Oregon. I mean, normally one assumes that if one is eating, sleeping, working, and paying taxes in a place, one is therefore "living" in that place. Think again. In this crazy place, if one is living in a hotel, one must live there for six months or more before being considered a resident of the state.

So, when we moved here and domiciled ourselves temporarily in a motel while we looked for a home, we were merely "transients."

This presented some practical challenges. For example, since we were no longer living in Washington, our insurance agency there informed us they could no longer cover us. Without a valid Oregon driver's license, the insurance agency here informed us they would be unable to begin covering us.

Possibly I don't need to point out that we were at this point living in a state of acute "catch 22." But I will anyway.

And in case you missed out on the word "acute," please to note that my insurance policy happened to be due to expire around that time.

Some pitying insurance agent, bless her, was able to get us covered and we moved on with our life-in-limbo. My hopes for an easy transition only became higher with the delay.

I don't like life to be complicated.

When we moved into a house in December, I had a short to-do list.
1) Celebrate Christmas.
2) Get mail at my new house so I could get a driver's license.

That was before I learned that an Oregon driver's license is not for poor men. Or, as I was forced to ruefully concede, jobless girls. That was also before I realized that in order to get a job I would have to order a replacement Social Security Card from the Social Security Administration because my card was somewhere in storage.

I now cherish a somewhat illogical grudge against the Social Security Administration. Anyplace that makes their customers wait for longer than thirty minutes to be helped should invest in comfortable chairs.

It wasn't until early February that I decided I could pass muster with the Department of Licensing. With my first two paychecks safely obtained, a brand new Social Security card, a statement from my insurance company for proof of residency, a head full of knowledge to take the required knowledge test, and an afternoon off to spend in yet another government office, I was ready to go.

This is where the part about (im)maturity and (lack of) personal responsibility comes in. I had withdrawn a couple of hundred dollars from the bank to cover licensing fees. When it came time to go, I couldn't find the money anywhere.

Instead of becoming Oregonized, I spent most of the afternoon hunting in obscure nooks and crannies of my bedroom and moaning my unfortunate habits of disorganization.

By the time my wonderful mother, bless her, found the money...it was too late and the visit had to be put off another week.

When I arrived at the licensing office yesterday, I was calm and collected. No one could have told, looking at me, that it had taken three hair-pulling months to get everything ready to change my lisence over. No one saw my inward grimaces when I was quoted $175.50 in fees to change my lisences over to Oregon.

And when I came up with only $171.00 and had to use the ATM machine, no one knew the inward pain it gave me to pay the $1.09 fee required to withdraw the $4.50 I needed to pay my total bill.

And no one knew that I was inwardly promising myself to stick around Oregon for a good long time. Lord willing. This is not a process that human nature is designed to endure too many times in a lifetime.

This is the stuff gray hair is made of.