I went downtown today to file a petition for name change, which I have been meaning to do for over a year. The past two times I have gone down there, Mower insisted on going with me. Both times, we had Handsome with us, and both times, Mower lost his patience with it all and insisted we hire a lawyer to do it. I tried to get a lawyer to do it, and got no response to my email, so I figured I would just do it myself, without my lazy and irritable husband. I drove down there today and actually found the courthouse without too much turning around, which is a huge thing for me. I am clueless with directions. I like the burbs, where there is a big sign next to the street with the name of what I am looking for, or nice directions like go right and turn at the Shell station. In downtown, it's on a grid but the highways snake, so I get really confused trying to find my way based off a highway.

I knew what was going to happen as soon as I parked. I hoped the homeless guy with the facial sores on the bike would be begging someone else as I did my change into the parking meter. No luck. He stayed a safe distance away, but he did try to make conversation with me. I couldn't even look at him for more than a split second. I have no idea what horrible affliction he had, but I had no intention of having him tell me. I told him all I had was the change for the parking meter. Luckily he went away. Normally, I give a dollar or whatever, but I didn't have anything less than a $20, and I'm thinking that I wouldn't want to ask for change. God I hope dollar bills don't carry whatever disease he had, should I ever be given one as change somewhere that he once carried.

The wait for the forms information wasn't so bad. This was the same booth where Mower wanted to leave because they were on lunch the last time we went, but this time they were there and they were helpful. They sent me to the law library, the very same law library where we were sent the first time we went down there, and Mower lost his patience and wanted to leave before even finding our exactly what we needed to do. I made my copies, gave the copy card back to the surly librarian who had never before seen such a pitiful lack of library skills as I possessed, and left.

I had a moment of panic when I could not find my car. I started walking faster, circling a building where I was certain I parked, just down the street from the first building I went into. No car. I went three more sides around. No car. I saw metermaids, I saw tow trucks whizzing by, and I started freaking out because I did not see my rental car. I'm thinking it got towed, wondering how I am going to get it and return it today, how much a parking ticket is, cursing the homeless guy for distracting me so I didn't see a sign....and then I saw the car. The car that I was directly across from when I waited to cross, only my attention was on the city car parked by the crosswalk, two cars in front of mine. I could have peed in relief, only I had gone ahead and peed in the restroom of the law library. I hate getting into elevators needing to pee. I am certain that only when my bladder is full and it's the day the air conditioning goes out in a building, that's the day I will get trapped in an elevator. And the elevator was already hot, so I didn't want two for two.

I was not happy I didn't get everything done on this, my third trip down there to change my name from my birth name to Peej Enter Married Name Here. But at least I know what I need to do, and know that Mower is not allowed to come with me. The dumb part of it all is that I am changing my name to make him happy. Ironic that he's such a butt about me getting it done, huh?