Friday, February 11, 2011

So help me...


The other day I needed to have something notarized. Technically speaking, what I needed was to have my signature witnessed on a legal document, and I also had the option of having two people “not related by blood or marriage” attest that it was me who had with my own hand applied my name.

I could have just trotted it over to my neighbors, but then that would have required some explanation, if only for civility, of what I was having them put their John Hancocks to, and while they’re lovely people I didn’t care to go into details. And I don’t live in a neighborhood that gets a lot of foot traffic, so I couldn’t’ve just hauled a couple of strangers in off the street. I suppose I could have taken the document down to the square and accosted passers-by until I found two who were willing to sign without caring what it was, but then I’d run the risk of some joker signing “Mickey Mouse” and I wasn’t sure that it would slip by unnoticed. So it was easier to just drive up to the credit union where I banked and have the receptionist, who was a notary, do the deed. They provided the service free for members, so all it was costing was my time.

I presented the form – not even the entire document, just the final page requiring my signature, and she didn’t ask to see the missing pages or question their purpose. She took my driver’s license to confirm my identity, entered the transaction in a logbook, and had me sign off on the entry. Then it got wacky.

Because the legalese of the form where the notary was to fill it in began “sworn to me this day...,” she advised me that I’d have to swear an oath. And so she had me raise my right hand while she rattled off a stock statement in which I attested to the truthiness of the transaction and ended “so help you God.” Not wanting to muddy the waters by pointing out that (a) it was merely my identity as signatory that was at issue and not any question of “truth,” and (b) I was an agnostic, I simply muttered “yes” and she cheerfully applied her stamp, handed over the form, and told me to have a nice day.

There was no indication on the form that, had I gone with the dual witness option, such a gesture would have been required. (There was nothing even to verify that two witnesses were in fact real people, so I suppose I could have talked my in-laws into doing it using fake names.) But notarization went the whole nine yards – not only ascertaining the authenticity of the notary (via the stamp) but also requiring me to “swear.”

Just this small example of how the system works makes me kinda glad I never pursued my high-school notion of becoming a lawyer.

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