The Great License Plate Odyssey
When we’ve turned in North Carolina license plates before, it was simple: show up at the DMV, wait behind nineteen people who forgot their forms, and walk out with a receipt proving freedom from the state’s grasp. But this time? Oh no. We sold our car in Buffalo New York, so we had to mail our very special custom North Carolina plate back to the DMV.
We dutifully boxed it up, sent it via UPS, and even got a signature confirmation — proof that someone, somewhere in Raleigh acknowledged its existence. Triumph! The end, right? Not so fast. Apparently, when you mail back a custom license plate, it vanishes into a bureaucratic black hole. The plate was still showing as “active” because — and I quote — no one knows what to do with those. So the good people of the DMV played a fun game of Hot Potato while our plate remained digitally alive and well.
This morning, Drew (my endlessly patient husband) called to sort it out. There was visible smoke coming from his ears as the representative explained that our plate “could take weeks or months to reach the special plate division.” Weeks or months. Honestly, that’s longer than most celebrity marriages. But incredibly, Drew stayed calm. And miracle of miracles — the same woman called back later to confirm the plate was now inactive!
Feeling unstoppable, Drew then called Progressive to cancel our car insurance. After at least six rounds of telling the automated system “cancel my auto insurance,” he finally reached a human, who asked him to repeat everything. Even after explaining that we sold the car, she asked if we’d like to insure a future car — one we don’t even own. When Drew politely declined, she triumphantly announced our cancellation request was denied until we submitted a faxed letter with our policy number, address, and reason for cancellation.
A fax. In 2026.
At this point, Drew didn’t just lose his mind — he lost it with grace. Calm, polite, determined grace. If there were an Olympic event for Bureaucratic Patience, he’d take home gold.
Here is the letter he sent:
“Don’t Tell Us”: The Internet Edition
Upon arriving in Toronto, we signed up for internet service through a company called Telus — or as Drew now affectionately calls them, “Don’t Tell Us.”
It started innocently enough: we were setting up cellphone service. My husband, technology wizard that he is, had already purchased consecutive family phone numbers. (Yes, apparently that’s a thing you can do.) All we needed was Telus to attach service to those numbers. Simple in theory, painful in practice.
Due to a small transcription error in our address, every call to Telus became a multi-hour odyssey. Each conversation ended with “please hold while I escalate this” — which we now know is code for “we have no idea.” Hours disappeared; hold music became the soundtrack of our new lives.
Eventually, Drew called another cellphone company, who fixed the issue in minutes, so we canceled our Telus mobile plan. He confirmed three separate times that only the cellphone plan was being canceled — not our home internet. “Your internet will remain active,” they said cheerfully. One hour later, our Wi-Fi flatlined.
When Drew called back, Telus promised a technician the next day. None came. And, predictably, there was “no record” of any appointment. Still, the representative cheerfully reassured Drew that our internet service was active. Which would have been comforting, had we been able to load even a single webpage.
After four days without internet, we’ve finally scheduled a new provider for tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m typing this on my phone — a noble act of digital survival.
Proving We Exist
If you’ve been following along, you’ll remember that for a while we were financially invisible. Every one of our credit and debit cards locked themselves the moment we crossed the border — our travel rewards card even joined in for good measure. Those issues are mostly resolved now, but apparently, being the new kids in Canada means we’re trusted about as much as Monopoly money in a retirement portfolio.
Take Costco, for instance. When I tried to order toilet paper online, they demanded a copy of our passport photos. Not because we seemed shady, but because our Ontario driver’s licenses hadn’t yet arrived in the mail, leaving us without a standard form of ID. Apparently, Costco needs reassurance that we are who we say we are before they’ll release the premium bath tissue.
And then, the universe smiled — our driver’s licenses arrived today! I now clutch mine like a golden ticket, thrilled to finally possess this proof of existence. The irony of needing a “driver’s” license when I’ll never drive anywhere near Toronto is not lost on me. It’s less about wheels and more about survival in Canada’s grand documentation circus.
Wrapping It All Up
So here we are: our plates are finally inactive, our internet is (temporarily) nonexistent, and our identities are verified — at least enough to buy toilet paper. Moving countries, it turns out, is a full-contact sport that combines patience, paperwork, and an impressive tolerance for hold music.
Through all of it, though, we’re laughing more than we’re crying — and we’re endlessly grateful. To our family and friends cheering us on from afar: your messages, calls, and “you’ve got this” texts keep us sane. And to the new friends and kind strangers we’ve met here in Toronto — thank you for welcoming us so warmly, bureaucracy and all.
We may still be knee-deep in phone trees, paperwork, and modem lights that never turn green, but we’re exactly where we’re meant to be — in a city that already feels like home.