Where I reveal my stripper name...

Also drug cakes

Eight months ago Steve and I super responsibly updated our wills and medical proxies and a variety of other grown up paper work. On the decidedly less responsible side we let said paperwork sit in a folder on Steve’s desk, buried by other less important and similarly ignored paperwork. In May we dug it out and realized our time to execute the documents had expired it was as useful to us as the vegetable sludge in the wonky fridge drawer (why can’t those things stay on their tracks?) So I had to suck it up and email the lawyer again to have them update and resend the paperwork.

We printed it out, put it in a fresh manilla folder and Steve drove the folder, three pets, a keg of beer and an odd assortment of posters across the country. You know where this is going. We hung out with the pets, hung the posters and drank the beer. The folder? Closed on Steve’s desk under a new stack of paperwork.

Steve, the pets, different beer and the same folder drove back across the country and they all landed heavily in Denver. I moved the folder to the counter and then the other side of the counter and we said “tomorrow” and then we said for sure the “tomorrow of tomorrow” and as Buddhists have known for centuries it is never actually tomorrow so the paperwork remains in a liminal state.

Thursday Steve and H and I sit in the living room going over our errands for the day, new library card, pharmacy (because it was a day so obviously pharmacy), other stuff. H listens to us try to psych ourselves up to go to the UPS store to have the paperwork notarized. J is a notary, she says. I am trying to place J, a character in a show, some sort of Youtube star? But no, J is a friend of H’s. He became a notary when he turned 18 because he is the kind of guy who gets shit done.

“Want me to ask him to come over?”

“Ummm”

She is texting before we can answer. “He says he is on his way with his notary stuff and a loaf cake that will definitely make me fail a drug test.” She shrugs. If it were any other teenager I might think that we were being offered pot cake. But these particular teenagers? It didn’t even occur to H that that’s what he meant. “He says it is poppy seed.” Right. That’s how you fail a drug test. A lemon poppy loaf.

Before Steve and I have had time to open the folder he is there. Cake, stamp, maroon embossed log. (Obviously the notary log was maroon.) Steve and I are frantically flipping through the eight multi page documents. One of them requires three THREE 3 witnesses.

”You are too efficient.” I tell J “We don’t have our shit together.”

He is calm.

“Do you need a black pen?”

I am sending out texts to friends. “How many 18+ year olds are in your house that can be at our house now-ish to witness some documents?” Five minutes later we have two 18 year olds. So there are four of them at the counter, and we are passing papers trying to stay orderly. The 18 year olds don’t seem to have signatures. They print their names where it says print and then the print their name again in a slight slant where it says signature.

We peer down at the various signature lines, principal, witness, testatrix. “That is you.” One of the 18 year old tells me. Testatrix? Two thoughts collide...why is this gendered, and if I want to become a stripper I want Testatrix to be my stage name. Actually that second part wasn’t a thought. My daughter groans behind me. The 18 year olds laugh uncomfortably. “How did you know that?” I ask my informant. “I am also a notary.”hee says. He is tall and standing taller. He pauses “I left my stamp at my grandmother’s house.” The original notary is giving a light tssking sound. “I thought you were supposed to keep your materials on your person at all times, like luggage at an airport.” I tease. This, it seems, is not something to joke about. “I didn’t mean to.” I am looking at 18. Excited to do paperwork. Not yet able to hold onto their stuff.

Then the doorbell rings and it is actual adults. “We came when we got your text.” They too have a senior. “T was so sad he couldn’t help out but he isn’t 18 yet.” A murmur goes around the room. Not being 18, tragic.

So we sign. All of us. Some with signatures, some without. We tuck the papers back in the folder which no longer seems to glare menacingly from its spot.

Now we just need to mail it.

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Side note: none of the “adults” read any of the content of the paperwork. And none of the ADULTS had read it in 8 months. So hopefully it didn’t re-write itself in the piles. I bet you have some paperwork stories…really good ones. LMK