Boots and Bureaucracy

Does this title remind you the slightest of such Jane Austen novels as "Pride and Prejudice" or "Sense and Sensibility" in the way "Duel and Duality" or "Amy and Amiability" are supposed to? No? Tough!

First and foremost, I should clarify that boots and bureaucracy should be kept well apart and taken care of separately. So:

Boots: I'm finaly able to wear boots again. For quite some time (some six weeks, I think) I couldn't put on my boots because I couldn't stand the pain of bending over long enough to do the long laces and had to wear some lighter footwear. Boots really are my thing, when it comes down to footwear, so those had not been a happy six weaks, though that might have been because of the pain, mobility impediment and overall tiredness and discomfort as well.

Bureaucracy: I'm in the process of moving. For five years (since I moved out) I have been living in rented rooms in houses where just about anyone can rent a room. Now, that's never really been a problem: The first house I moved out into (eh...?) had been rented out to students just like myself, and frshmen as well, for the most part, and even though most of them already knew each other well before moving in together, we hit it off well and became friends. Sure, many people choose to get together in groups and rent a whole flat(and split the rent) instead of renting only one room in a house where it's owner doesn't live (like I did), but fate hadn't that in mind for me. I later moved out and into a room closer to campus with a lower rent (gotta mind that rent...) and with a colleague I already knew quite well. In time, a spare room has been rented out to someone neither of us knew and later to someoene we both knew. And now, I've left to live on my own. How does this relate to bureaucracy? Well, so far, I had had nothing but verbal agreements with my landlords, wherein periodically (moe or less so, for my former landlord) he'd come by the house to collect rent money and payment for whatever services not included in the agreement but under his responsability. This time, I have a full lease, complete with a deed and all. Now, the house has all the utilities (water, power, etc.) ready to use, but the company(ies) should refuse to let them be used without whatever ton of triple stamped paperwork and whatnot, signed by both the landlord and myself. Now, I can always find a litle time to swing by the imobiliary to sign something or another, and such seems to be the case with the landlord, but all the officialising and the stamping and the technicalities have bogged down the process to the stage where I'll be moving into a house with NO utilities. Really, WTF!? Couldn't we just call the company and say "OK, we're going to spend some of your water and power and whatnot, just bill me" and be done with it?

Perhaps the boots would be best suited to deal with the bureaucracy after all...

Pax vobiscum atque vale.

ArabianShark would like to challenge the pencil pushers into his own territorial waters: let's see you stamp your precious forms underwater...