We interrupt this blog ... (attention: venting language ahead)

I love living in Virginia, but there's one thing that's driving me fucking insane. When we moved here in July, my car tag was about to expire. I called the VA DMV, and they told me I could either keep my TX plates and renew there, or opt to switch my car to VA. I weighed my options, compared prices, and put something up on Facebook about my decision. An Army wife acquaintance saw it and told me I had to switch over to VA, that I didn't have a choice.

I visited the VA DMV's website, and evidently she was right. I made the switch. I brought my initial registration papers from TX to prove that I'd paid $1000 on taxes on my car when I first got it. And that was that.

Or so I thought.

Since then, I've been getting letters from the commonwealth of VA and the whatever-the-hell-they-call-it (city, essentially) that we live in telling me I owe personal property taxes on my car.

I called. Explained that I've already paid them in TX. But evidently that doesn't count. Because VA is a commonwealth. That means VA itself can charge me, AND the city can charge me just for parking my car within its borders.

To avoid all this crap (and having to deal with it every time we move), I can transfer MY car that I bought and I paid for solely into K's name, since he's the servicemember and is exempt from such shit tactics.

Then, in November, the Mil!tary Spouse's Res!dency Rel!ef Act passed. I thought, "How awesome! Now I can keep my car in my name!"

WRONG!

See, for some reason the act only applies to spouses who were born in the same state as the servicemember. How the hell does that make sense? I was born in this country. Aren't we all on the same team?!

And the most frustrating part? In my effort to follow the law, I screwed myself over. See, because now I have my car registered in VA. We had a little gubernatorial election in November too, so I registered to vote here. The November act allows me to have a home of record. Since I've changed so much over to VA, I guess it can't be TX anymore, which means it'll probably have to be VA at least for now.

So that takes me back to having to transfer my car solely to K's name.

I feel like the state (grr!) commonwealth of VA is stealing my car and giving it to my husband. K doesn't understand why I'm so frustrated by the whole thing. He says it's just a piece of paper.

But the trouble is, it's a legal document. Just like a marriage license, or a will.

It's my car. I bought it. Why can't my name be on the title? (And if my home of record stays VA, then I'll NEVER be able to have my name on the car title. To avoid being taxed out the @$$, it has to be solely in the servicemember's name.)

I was expressing my frustration tonight while I was trying to vacuum our living room rug and our couch. I had just moved a TV tray out of the way, which had resting on it K's fancy laptop and our ridiculous TV remote that has a touch screen and connects to the effing computer.

I struggled with the fancy vacuum and its eleventy billion attachments (K put it together while I was unpacking our kitchen, so I missed out on the, "THIS is how it works!" that comes along with putting it together). K cringed and kept telling me to wait when I was doing so much as picking the vacuum up. (Seriously, not even exaggerating. I wasn't slamming it, I wasn't jamming anything. Nothing.)

I'm so frustrated right now. I love the area where we live, and I'm so glad to be living with K now.

But part of me misses the simplicity of living with my shitty $60 Hoover (that wasn't that shitty, really) and the TV remote that I could carelessly toss across the room because it came with my shitty TV and could be replaced if needed, and in an actual state that wasn't trying to tax me for something that I'd ALREADY paid taxes on when I bought it FIVE FUCKING YEARS AGO.