Got my new birth certificate in the mail! My husband handed me an envelope from the Prince Edward Island Department of Vital Statistics, and I bent it back and forth; hmm, no hard laminated certificate. Maybe they’ve rejected my application for a certificate; maybe I don’t exist?

I tore it open. They’ve changed the format. (After thirty-one years – keeping up with the times, you know.) Now it’s a slip of bank-note paper with all the pertinent info on it, in a plastic sleeve. On the back it says “Void if altered or laminated.”

I liked my laminated birth certificate. It was sturdy. Oh, well.

Now the missing one can show up any time.

Here, birth certificate; I’ve got a friend for you to play with. Here, certificate, certificate, certificate….