SC is reminding me way too much of Slovakia

I am glad that my life amuses someone other than me. In fact I think it is helping me find the humor in things that frustrate me. Case in point...

As you have read we just moved back to SC. Let's start with our residence...an apartment that cost way too much considering I have asked the staff to fix some problems and we still have a toilet that runs and a light bulb hanging out of the fan with no cover on it. These both seem like easy things to solve, but then again I must have moved to a communist country. Last week my car was hit with a plastic gate that guards the exit to our apartment. It is on a sensor, but it did not work for me. The staff told me not to worry the paint would come off of my van. Never mind the gate not actually working or it hitting another car.

Next...our new residence. I could go all day on this one, but I will spare you. We are building a house through KB Homes. We signed the paperwork 7 weeks ago, and chose our customizations 4 weeks ago. There is nothing on our lot, no one had called for the last 6 weeks, and we are paying rent until our house is done! Chad called on our way to Atlanta, and they explained that someone would call to schedule our preconstruction meeting. Never happened, so my brilliant husband called their VP of Sales. We later recieved 2 calls. Turns out someone listed our NC phone number in the files (even though we never gave it to them), and they couldn't reach us there. Capitalism at its best! So we have a meeting on Monday, and they still seem to think that after 2 months of no progress that the house can be finished in 4-6 more months.

OK, I saved the best for last. Tomorrow Chad and I are going to the DMV. I have pulled every form of personal identification I can find in expectation for this fine meeting. This time I have a secret weapon...Greer. You see she is just too cute! They have to help me. Even though, as much as I would like to have the name Reagan Fowler Tidd on my drivers license, I know this cannot be done in my home state. Funny I had it in WV and NC, but I already fought this battle when I lived in Mullins.

Yesterday I went to pay our car taxes. In SC you have to go to the Auditor's office to get the assessment of your property, then you go to the Treasurer's office to pay them. Stupid! NC and WV both condensed this process to the DMV. (Mark Sanford, I hope you are reading this.) The Auditor told me that I had to have ID stating that I lived in SC before she could assess the value of my cars. Which meant that I would have to go to the DMV to change my license and come back and then go back to the DMV to get my tags. Then Greer got to her...she told me that I could provide her with proof of an address change, which I had. Then I just had to change Chad's SC license to our new address, which could be done on the computer next door. Within 30 minutes I left the county office, a lot poorer, but I left with all the information I needed to go and get tags for our cars tomorrow. There is hope in the fine state of SC!

But somehow the frustration of it all makes me wish that I didn't speak the language and that we had some sort of excuse like "30 years under communist regime". For now, I will just chalk it up to a government that is way too big to trust me to want and try to be a responsible citizen and businesses that think they can have their cake and eat it, too even in a recessed economy. I wish we could all return to a time when a free market economy provided an incentive to do your job well. Oh well, guess that is just way too much economics talk from someone who hasn't taken a class on the subject since high school.