What's in a Name, Part II

So...I'm off on an establishment rant again...

Was thinking about my PA driver's license today, because a friend was talking about renewing her license. And I got ticked. Again.

When I married Hal, I had to get a new Social Security card. Chose to list my name as Connie Wagner Garlick, dropping my middle name (Marie). The Social Security Administration, seeing my birth certificate and marriage certificate, accepted this as my name. So did the Internal Revenue Service.

The state of Ohio gave me no trouble issuing a driver's license in the name of Connie Wagner Garlick, or Connie W. Garlick (I don't remember if they used middle name or initial).

The state of South Carolina - Connie Wagner Garlick.

The state of Nebraska - Connie Wagner Garlick.

You would THINK that this is a national trend, allowing someone to use the name that they have chosen upon their marriage.

Think again.

The commonwealth of Pennsylvania - the woman across the counter at the DMV - crossed out Wagner as my middle name and wrote Marie. I told her that was not my name. She insisted that it was. I told her that I had changed my name when I married. Showed her my Social Security Card again. She told me that using the name on the Social Security card "USED" to be legal. She insisted that my middle name is Marie, that she had to use the middle name on my birth certificate.

I went to my state representative's office shortly after getting a PA DL that does not match the name on my bank accounts, IRS info, SS card...and got a young woman behind a desk who called the DMV, would not let me talk to them, laughed with the person on the phone, and smugly told me that was the law. I told her it was a stupid law (I may have thrown in a non-preacherly word) and got up and left.

I still think it's a stupid law. Two entities of the federal government and three other states recognize me as who I choose to be. The sad thing is, I really like where we're living and don't want to move just so I can get my real name back on a driver's license. *sigh* I will just have to get our representative on one of his public appearances and get him to understand that this is a law that needs to be changed. Or just have a driver's license that matches none of my other information until I retire and move from PA.

Oh - and to top it off - the same woman HIT ON MY HUSBAND the next week, when he went to get his license. Thankfully, I was not in the building when it happened, or I'd be writing this from jail.