Bureaucracy Stinks!

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Dear Readers,

We're students. Did I tell you that? I'm sure you already knew. So obviously we don't make a whole heck of a lot of dough. So, like most students, we're on food stamps. For those of your who are looking down you nose at us, don't worry, as soon as we get a job we'll be paying back in taxes whatever the government's giving us now ten times over. Anyway...every six months we have a review to see if we're still eligible for help, and every six months it seems, even when there aren't any changes, there are more hoops to jump through. Well this time around, there was a small change (a whoppin' $35 dollars more a month), and now we are almost literally drowning in red tape and paperwork. Apparently there was a mistake made way back in August of 2010 with Tyson and his grant, which came to light when the change was being input. Well it's way to complicated to even try to explain, especially because I don't really understand it myself, but the upshot of everything is that in order to keep our benefits I have to print out a year and a half worth of bank statements and then go through each one and mark whether it was Tyson or I who made each transaction. Oh and I have to take my name off any account that is associated with any of the grant money.

Yup, you read that right. For the first time since Tyson and I were engaged we will not have a joint account. But that's not even the worst part. I not only can not have my name on any account with Tyson, but I also can not have any of the grant money transferred into any account with my name on it. Which means for the first time since my parents took me to open my first bank account when I was, I don't know... 13 maybe, I don't have a bank account. Which means, besides my credit card, which is for emergencies only, I have no access to any money, at all. Did you follow all that?

Now the really strange part about all this is how it's effected me emotionally. Yeah, I'm frustrated but that comes with the territory, when do you tangle with bureaucracy without getting frustrated? But this time around the process has left me feeling different. Now Tyson is about the farthest you can get from chauvinistic, but knowing that now I can't even purchase a roll of toilet paper without Tyson's "permission" somehow makes me feel smaller, downgraded, almost second class. I don't really know why. I can't really explain it. Even going back and re-reading these words they don't really communicate the strange mix of emotions that I have about this ridiculous loss of a bank account. It's just a bank account, right? What we buy isn't going to change, right? Just now Tyson has to do the buying, right? Nothing is really different, right? And yet somehow everything is different.

Well thanks for listening. I needed to vent. Wish me luck with the bank statements, I'm sure they'll take awhile. Love you all.

A slightly smaller, slightly emotionally confused,

-ME