Problem Solved

This morning the BF and I headed back to the mairie, clutching the magic notarized document from the US Consulate that stated that my first name did indeed have a space and that it was my ENTIRE FIRST NAME.

Upon entering the room, we could see our bitchy fonctionnaire lady, who happened to be facing the door, chatting with one of her colleagues. It was so obvious from her expression when she saw us walk in that she was thinking, "Ugh, it's them....AGAIN."

"Bonjour," she said when we arrived in front of her desk. Her enthusiasm was equivalent to that of someone about to shot by a firing squad. We sat down and brandished the notarized document from the consulate. "Here's that paper you requested the other day," said the BF. "It proves that we are right about her first name." Fonctionnaire Bitch stared at us somewhat blankly. "Right. Who are you, again? I have to get the dossier."

She came back about 5 minutes later with the dossier, looked quickly at the document from the consulate, and said, "Ok, so I'm going to delete the comma, but the space will have to stay in there, you know." "Yes, we know," said the BF. "All right, then, here you go," she said printing out a new copy of the banns for us. Indeed, the comma had miraculously disappeared, and obviously was not something that could not be deleted because of the software, as she had previously claimed.

Fonctionnaire lady went about it so calmly and smoothly the whole thing was over in about 5 minutes. I admit that I was a bit disappointed - I had secretly been hoping that she would have a reaction akin to a nervous breakdown: "Damn it! They actually got that document from their Embassy! Now I really have to change it! Damn damn damn!!!"

In other news, I checked online and it seems as though Heroes will indeed be available in a VM option on TV, which means that I can watch it in English!

I am sure the in-laws will be thrilled - they refuse to watch anything that is NOT dubbed into French, and I refuse to watch things that ARE dubbed into French.

Last time we all got into a heated argument because we were going to watch "Lord of War" on DVD and I wanted to watch it in English and they insisted on watching it in French. I was totally outnumbered, 5-1. I hope this time, maybe the SIL and her boyfriend (they are about 18 years old) will insist on watching it in English.

Probably not, though, to be honest.

As the BF never tires of telling me, "What the French People want is what they get, and they want to watch everything dubbed into French."

Anyway, my mom will be here in France in a couple of weeks, and since she doesn't speak a word of French (shocking, isn't it?) we will be forced to watch stuff on TV in the VM option, which means that the in-laws will be FORCED to watch things in (gasp!) English!