Friday, April 04, 2008

Stuck on Stupid

I know I haven't written anything in the last week or more, but between class obligations, work obligations and life obligations, I've been derailed by stupid. Or just bullsh*t. Take your pick.

First of all, for the last 10 years or so, Hubby and I have been under our own misguided notion that the original copy of our marriage license/decree was in a safe deposit box up in the big city. For reasons I'm going to leave unexplained, I need the original copy for a legal reason. Turns out that the 5 copies we had notarized back when we thought we locked up the original don't count as certified and we now have no idea what happened to the original. Gak!

So I went to an online service that is in our state that I used to get extra certified copies of the boys' birth certificates a few years ago. Otherwise, I'd have to take a trip up to the county where Hubby and I were married, and right now, I just don't have time to spend an entire day going back and forth.

After I put in all the relevant info, declared I was one of the parties, gave my credit card info including my stated and billing address (refused the 19.95 Fed Ex delivery, but accepted the free "regular mail" option), I had to answer some "verification for personal identity" questions.

What other property do I own? It gave 4 addresses plus a "none". I answered it correctly.

What cities in Colorado had I never lived in? It gave 3 cities I'd lived in plus one that doesn't even exist, and I picked the correct option.

What county have I never lived in? It gave 4 counties, plus a "none" option. I picked the correct option.

Have any of these people ever lived with you or lived at your current address? It gave 4 names plus a none option.

Well how in the hell am I supposed to know? I know the names of the people we bought the house from, but they weren't on the list. Do they think we keep a walking pedigree of the previous owners/tenants from the time the house was built? I clicked on "none".

And they rejected my application based on that. How freaking stupid is it?

We went to Little Guy's IEP meeting. Although he is graduating from high school this year, he is going to receive transitional services through the high school until he is 21.

We've been planning a huge graduation "do" for him. We'd already let all the friends/family know when his graduation was taking place, and many have bought plane tickets and gotten hotel reservations in anticipation for his day.

While we were compiling the "official" graduation announcements to send out, we noticed some fine print on them. "By ticket only". WTF?

Turns out that each graduate gets 7 tickets. When deciding on this venue (which isn't actually in our small town, and could have seated over a couple of thousand people if they held it at the high school like normal peeps instead of at some swanky auditorium down in the city) the organizers didn't inform the families that we'd be limited by tickets. Relatively speaking to the rest of the country, it's a very small graduating class----around 120. The rest of the tickets are going on first come, first serve at the front office on Monday. Limit 5 tickets per family.

Little Guy has 5 siblings alone. No, I didn't mistake my vagina for a clown car, but his dad has remarried and has had a second family. Additionally, Little Guy has 4 parents. 5 grandparents. 4 aunts and uncles (out of like 12) who have made plans to come. Close friends who marked out this date and have non-refundable plane tickets.

It's bullsh*t. As I said to the assistant principal at our IEP----"This is Little Guy's Day. The day the 'experts' said would never come."

He isn't going to ever get a chance to graduate from college. This is IT for him. So from out of all our friends and family who have already spent money on plane tickets----we have to decide who gets to go and who not? The rest can sit around in our living room and twiddle their thumbs? I think not.

Stupid. It's stupid.*
____________________________


*Yes we've planned a big graduation party for the day after (the graduation is at 7pm), but seriously, people are coming in to be there at his big moment. And he deserves to have them there.


Oh and P.S. I've got to either go up to the county in person to get our decree or apply by snail mail. So snail mail it is. :-)

17 comments:

Mel said...

I recommend that you show the Assistant Principal your bunny slippers of doom, dude.
That's just flat-out fucking ridiculous.
Also - so what's the punchline on the license? Do you now have to go to the county place and get it?

Anonymous said...

Is it possible to get tickets that might go unused from the other families?

Star said...

i was going to recommend the same as Christi. ood luck. I bet it all works out. It has to.

Beth said...

Gather your family and friends together and storm the room! What are they going to do? Arrest all of you? (Strength in numbers...)
Little Guy deserves his moment to shine with loved ones looking on.

L said...

What a pain! There has to be a way for you to get more tickets. I like the idea of asking others if they have unused ones. I'm sure there have to be some floating around.

Sheesh! Who ever thought you would need to scalp ticket for a kid's graduation?

I hope it works out.

Liesl said...

Oh, that's bullcrap! Seems to me that they still have time to change it to accomodate everyone. I bet I know which auditorium they're having it in as I went to a graduation there. It was ridiculous! Why not just have the graduation where the action actually took place?? I remember watching my friends on the stage and thinking, this is totally disconnected from their high school career. Assclowns!

Ashley's Mom said...

Have an IEP meeting before graduation and put it in the modifications and accomodations section that Little Guy gets to have as many of his family come to graduation as he wants.

Oh, and wear the bunny slippers to the meeting :)

Angela said...

Wow I would say you have had quite a fun week - not

stinkypaw said...

That does suck, big time! Hope things get in order for you and Little Guy who so should be surrounded by all that love him on his fine day!

Jennifer S said...

I hope you can find a way for everyone to be there...good luck.

Brenda said...

Over the years our little school has also chosen to hold the High School graduations at an auditorium in town at the college. I also think this sucks. Your son's big moment should be celebrated with family and friends and the ticket thing is totally unfair!

Anonymous said...

we're having that same graduation problem at our house right now too. My half brother is graduating, and well, he has four parents, me, and 4 grandparents. Not to mention, numerous relatives coming in for the occasion. It's kind of ridiculous, what do divorced kids do nowadays?! Sheesh!

Either way, HIGH FIVE TO LITTLE GUY! AWESOME JOB! :]

Anonymous said...

"I didn't mistake my vagina for a clown car" You killed me!I'm still laughing!!!

Beth said "storm the room": that's what I would try! That's LG's day!
Good luck and hugs! xoxo

Samantha said...

That's ridiculous! Is there no way they can make an exception? Or can you get other tickets from people who may not have large families?

Anonymous said...

On the topic of graduation--when I was senior class advisor, we had to limit tickets BUT there were always enough because we had kids turn in what they didn't need for other families needing more. I don't ever remember a year where requests weren't fulfilled--and sometimes up to 20 tickets for some kids. I say press the issue with the class advisor or administrators and GET THOSE EXTRA TICKETS!!!

Michelle Flaherty said...

What about closed circuit TV? I remember the year after I graduated high school, the first George Bush spoke at graduation and we had a school channel and could watch the graduation from our homes. Maybe you could ask the principal to do something like that for all those people who can't be at the actual event?

In any case, congratulations on his graduation!!!

Litzi said...

Hi Attila,
Sometimes it appears that the entire Country is being strangled by red tape. Everything one attempts to do turns into a major hassle of undue proportion nowadays….

I hope you can eventually work it out so that all of Little Guy’s relatives are able to attend his Graduation ceremony.