Apostilling Adventure

I drove to Springfield this morning with Mapquest directions to the Secretary of State's (will be identified as "SOS" from now on) office in hand. Everything was great until I pulled up next to the Capital building. I looked at my paper. 0.1 miles, your destination is on your right. I looked at my right. The Capital building again. How strange.

I kept driving, getting into the 200 block, then 300. I called the SOS office. "Um, hello, I am trying to find your building? And I'm having trouble?"

I'm not a customer service expert, but let's just say that the receptionist had a voice that made me think, well, that she didn't like talking to lost people.

In a monotone, "We're the building north of the Capital."

"And how about parking?"

"Parking behind the building is for state employees. There is metered parking in front you can use."

That was great, just great. I normally NEVER carry cash, but today, thinking ahead, I had slipped some greenbacks in my purse. The only problem was that I had one nickel and 6 pennies.

Which, in case you're wondering, is not enough to park. So I did what anyone would do. I drove around to find a McDonald's to buy a frappe I didn't want with money I didn't want to spend. The first funny thing was that I only had $50s. (I feel the need to mention this is unusual, too. I don't want you to think this is our normal currency of choice, but I happened to do a favor for a friend and this was my payment. Oh, the friend's number is - haha, just kidding. It was a good favor.) I paid with a $50. It seemed ridiculous.

So I bought the frappe (mindlessly) and while waiting, I happened to glance down in my hand. My change include one quarter. One! 


I figured, being across from the Capital, that one quarter wouldn't even be close to what I needed. So....

"Ma'am, is there any way you can give me 4 quarters for a dollar?"

She looked at me and was polite. "Yes, but you'll have to wait until my drawer is open again."

So I affixed a grin to my face while I waited for the next customer.

I got four quarters.

Then I set out to try to find the SOS building.

North of the Capital? That meant it was on the...left. And there it was.

I found a meter, gave it three quarters (which happened to give me 1.5 hours. Sorry, congresspeople. I shouldn't have assumed it would be inflated), and met the very (?) friendly receptionist. I didn't see a smile. Come to think of it, I didn't see a frown either. Just...nothing.

This story has already dragged on too long, but since I don't post often, you don't care, right? Right?

The lady who did the apostilling was very nice. Five documents had to be notarized or renotarized for various reasons (the notary was very friendly, too) and 24 documents were apostilled. My birth certificate, since it was from Ohio, can't be apostilled in Illinois. So I have to mail it to Ohio.  Tangent: that means I can't send all this paperwork off to Washington yet. Maybe next week. But the seals on our paperwork look very pretty.

While sitting there (it took awhile - 9 minutes left on the meter when I went back out), I had the opportunity to observe. The funniest thing of the whole day was an exchange between a worker and someone on the phone.

The worker got more and more irritated with the caller. Lots of huffing, sighs, etc.

Finally, the worker said, "Thanks for your advice!" and she hung up.

When she got off the phone, she told her coworker, "That person gave me some customer service advice, so I thought they would like to talk to a dial tone!"

Mercifully, this is the end of the story.

Approval letter received!

How exciting! Today we received our approval letter.

Tomorrow I will email all our documents to our adoption agency to make sure we have everything. Then they will get apostilled. THEN they go to Poland.

I am grateful to have this letter a week before I expected it :).