2 Countries, 2 Names & Plans for a Life of Crime

Not all women change their names after they get married, but I did.

Well, sort of. It depends on where you look.

All of my paperwork here in France says that I am “Mrs. Massoud.” However, if you take a look at my Colorado driver’s license, my social security card & my passport, Mrs. Massoud is nowhere to be found.

Since our 2-year wedding anniversary is coming up next week, it seemed like a good time to finally make some of this shit official.

Ugh. Two countries, Two names. Too much of a fucking hassle.

The real problem is the fact that my passport is about to expire and armed with only my carte de séjour, I’d only be free to move about the E.U. That might be a bit of a problem should I ever feel like heading home to the states again, which is likely since there isn’t an Arby’s anywhere in France.

I did some checking. It seemed that I would have to take care of the name change with Social Security before the name on my passport could be changed. I would have to make a trip to the U.S. Embassy here in Paris. No problem.

Briefly, my mind flashed back to my last visit there: sitting in the waiting area, waiting for my number to be called while a family from Africa sat and watched as their tiny son groped, pulled, and stroked my straight blonde hair.

I decided that I would take Olivier with me to protect my hair. Not only that, but it’s always more enjoyable to take someone else along to experience the suffering.

We arrived at the embassy, which was surrounded by guards. Unless you’re actually going inside, you don’t have any right to be on the sidewalk at all. It seems that the guards spend the majority of the day chasing people off of the sidewalks just in case someone should attempt an act of terrorism on foot.

At the security checkpoint, the guards rummaged through our bags & took out anything that could be even the slightest bit useful, shoved it all into a Ziploc bag and stuck it in a shelf.

Then they handed me a page of instructions. Fucking instructions.

Enter the waiting area on the upper level. Take a number and remain seated until your number is called.

Ok, fine. We got our number and proceeded to wait while mocking the other people in the waiting area. Then we read the instructions a little further.

For Social Security Services, please locate one of the two phones in the far corner of the 2nd waiting area. Dial 244 and await further instructions.

“Await further instructions?” Now I felt like a secret agent. In the U.S. Embassy, making calls on a special phone, awaiting further instructions. I was Jack fucking Bauer.

After several rings, a woman picked up.

“Hello?”

“Uh… yeah. I need to take care of a name change on my social security card. Am I speaking with the right person?”

“Your last name is what?”

“Ma-”

“No. Spell please.”

“M-”

“Okay… hold please.” Click.

The woman came back on the line. She informed me that the agent handling persons with the letter M could not speak with me at the moment. I was to wait at the phone. She would call me with further instructions.

Olivier and I stood near the phone, ready to strike should anyone attempt to use the phone before I received further instructions.

The big disappointment was, I received no further instructions. Agent M simply called me back a couple of minutes later & informed me that she couldn’t see me until the name had been changed on my passport.

I had been informed that the opposite was true. “That is no longer the procedure,” she told me.

Okay. Well, I still had my number, which hadn’t been called, and we still had plenty of people in the waiting area to make fun of.

In the end, I walked out of there with my old passport, old social security card, and a form for a new passport that I could have printed out on line.

Maybe I’ll just keep both names. It might come in handy for pulling crimes.