Cheap insurance

Eventually a trip report from Chicago, but first some rather exciting news:

Maria has her driver's license!

Friday around noon we headed to the BMV so she could take her scheduled test. She drove there, and Asim fell asleep. I waited around in the room, nervous as anything, and after about 25 minutes, she came back smiling! Asim woke up while I was waiting and proceeded to walk around and make friends with everyone there. Not sure where he gets that from.

Anyway, after Maria came back, Asim befriended a girl about 8 months older and when it was time to leave, she started crying and freaking out. Way to go son, breaking hearts already. Nice.

So there's still a good bit of learning, practice and whatnot for Maria, but for now she's free to roam about the country. I guess all the yelling, screaming and pointing paid off as far as teaching goes. Now I know what to do for Asim at least. Sunday I called the insurance company (Liberty Mutual -- they have the non-annoying ads) and put her on the policy. I was kind of annoyed at the prospect of this simply because I knew it would raise the premium. I thought it would be by a fairly significant amount -- we pay a little over a hundred bucks a month for the two cars.

The insurance company didn't know I was married. So what? Well, it does make a difference. After putting me in the "married" category and adding her as a first-time driver, our premium went ... down. That's right. And I'm going to get a refund on this year from what I already overpaid. Dang.

I expect it to go down even further when we move to Omaha in a few short weeks here. Particularly when they ask me, "how far do you drive to work?" I don't! Ha!