I am who you say I am

In an event reminiscent of the Buddhist saying, "after enlightenment, the laundry," my daughter and her newly-minted husband arrived yesterday ... and the first thing they did was to visit the Probate Court.

My daughter wanted to legally change her last name to her husband's.

Anyone might think that changing their name is their own damned business, but business has its own demands and most of them are bureaucratic and largely infuriating.

At the court, the new couple, married in Fiji last week, shelled out $180 to start a long-winded, weeks-long process that includes providing a birth certificate, marriage certificate and a willingness to have the change printed in a local newspaper ... and then have that clipping returned to the court which will then certify the name change.

Let me see if I've got this straight: I get to call myself what I want ... but only if you say so.

Sure, it's par for the course -- you define me and I define you -- but is par for the course enough?