Mr. Zwart

I got married a few weeks ago and am about to move house to live together with my new 'spouse' Merel That entails a lot of administrative paperwork regarding insurance, change of address and all that stuff. The fact that I married a woman while I am one myself never really struck me as odd until this afternoon. Well, not so much odd as "oh, our computer can't input that".

This afternoon I spoke to at least three companies and some of them had already been tipped that I was now married through the GBA computer (Gemeentelijke Basis Adminstratie a.k.a. BigBrother Inc.). But Merel had been invariably registered as Mr. Zwart. I guess Big Brother don't know that much after all Some forms are not yet equipped to deal with Mrs and Mrs it seems.

However, the day care centres here are much more progressive than the insurance companies because when I recently signed up with one of them, in anticipation of our baby arriving in December, the form didn't read Mother / Father but Parent 1 / Parent 2. That makes things much simpler