If everything were going perfectly for me (which it rarely does), today’s post would be something short and cutesy like “We’re on the road for the day!  Update you when we get there!”

But, obviously, it isn’t.

And let’s talk about why.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago on Twitter, I kind of fucked up the car.  I do mean “kind of”, as it wasn’t anything serious; the Saturday before Easter, I was heading to the grocery store to buy some lemons for this lemon meringue pie recipe (which is phenomenal!), and as I was exiting the parking garage, I scraped the passenger side of the car against a concrete bulwark.  It marred both doors as well as the body.  I felt incredibly stupid, particularly since my landlady was right there, and the fact that I’ve had my license since I was 16 and never gotten into any sort of scrape or accident.

Oh, we’ve also had the car for less than a year.  Our beautiful little red Jetta, whom I have fondly named “Roxanne” (although my mom’s old Galant is the original Roxanne!), was wounded — by me.

Obviously, I continued on to the grocery store.  Those lemons weren’t going to appear in my kitchen, and it wasn’t like the car was in horrible condition.  So I got to the store, bought bread, walked out… and had to go back in for the lemons.

Anyhow, after some hand-wringing and teeth gnashing, and waiting out the holiday weekend, we called the insurance company.  As it turned out, because Chris has never had a claim on his insurance in the 15+ years he’s been with them, they’re covering all repair costs — we don’t even pay a deductible — as well as not increasing our payments, AND covering the cost of a rental car until we have our vehicle back.  So that’s great news.  The estimate for all the body work clocks in at a cool $4000.

We anticipated having Roxanne back for Friday, May 1st.  Except … it turns out that not only did I mess up the sides pretty well, I bent the rear axle.  Repair time is increased, and now we don’t know when we’ll get it back — maybe Tuesday, maybe Wednesday, maybe not.  So much for our plans to leave here and head to visit my family today.  And no, we can’t take the rental car; we cannot bring it across the border without breaking the contract with both the rental place and the insurance company.

Of course, even if we did have our car, there is another problem.  After eleven weeks, we still don’t have Maia’s birth certificate, and hence, she can’t cross the border into the US with us.  But let me tell you why we don’t have it yet.

See, after five weeks of not having her birth certificate, we called the government to see what the holdup was.  They told us that it can take up to eight weeks to be processed.  So, after nine weeks, we called again and were told that we should have it by now, but since we didn’t, they flagged it for review.  The following week, we called again and were told that it had been processed and would be on its way, arriving within three to five business days.  Being us, we waited seven business days without receiving it before calling again — that is, last Thursday, the 30th of April.

They tell us it was mailed out on the 21st and has been waiting for us to pick up since the 23rd.  However, we’ve not received ANY communication letting us know that the item has arrived.  Are we supposed to be fucking psychics?  Chris confirms the courier service’s location for pick-up and heads there after work.

Except it’s not there anymore.  Because we haven’t picked it up in the week that it’s been there, it’s on a truck being shipped back to the government office.  Eighteen hours away.

Let’s be real.  This is Ontario.  Everything important in Ontario happens in the Toronto area.  I could even understand if it was going to Ottawa, the country’s capitol, which is a five hour drive or so.  Eighteen hours?  People LIVE that far away?

Despite an hour of talking with the courier service, they are absolutely unable to redirect the birth certificate envelope back to us.  It has to return to the government office, and then be sent out to us again.  Maybe this time we’ll actually be informed that our package has arrived.

So there you go.  Even if we had the car, we wouldn’t have the birth certificate.  We may still leave this week, but it’s unlikely, and since requirements to enter the US change as of June 1st, I’m not sure when we’ll get to go.  And I’m furious.  I hate dealing with the fucking Canadian government.

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