High Times at the DMV

This post will not garner a great deal of web traffic.

I have seen other blog postings, social media rants and even essays by well respected writers, delving into personal accounts of hell from the DMV, the airlines, Amazon, and even shabby service at even shabbier restaurants. The details become boring and hackneyed even before the 100 word marker.

Nevertheless, I'm going to persist.

Because if you stay to the end you will understand why I, and probably you, and probably 7.9 billion people on this planet are cursing the moment we collectively entered the 21st century's version of the Not-So-Roaring 20's. And why, when it appears a dark cloud seems to stalking us, it always seems to open up and dump sloppy diarrhea on our unprotected heads. Particularly on the days when I forget to wear my mask.

here goes:

Way back in the halcyon days of 2019, my uncle moved from his house in Palm Springs to an assisted living facility here in LA. Unfortunately he had also just leased a Nissan Kicks and turning it in early would have cost him dearly. Fortunately, my youngest daughter had just totaled her car in Denver (no injuries), so as they did in 2019 and no longer do in 2020, the stars aligned. A little.

Oh sure, we still had a shit for brains president whose incompetence will be marked for the ages, but at least in 2019, his inadequacies left no mark on my family's life. Again, unlike 2020.

I will spare you all the dreadful DMV details, suffice to say I made the arrangements with Nissan to take over the lease of my uncle's car. Saving him money and putting my daughter back on the smooth, well paved roads of 2019.

As it turned out the DMV required me to make a personal appearance to complete the registration.

After 2 &1/2 painful hours I was finally called to Window 8, where the DMV jezebel told me the forms were incomplete. She printed out an instruction sheet with a detailed account of how I could rectify the situation. I did so the next day and sent the packet of documents to DMV headquarters in Sacramento.

That happened in January 2020. And the descent into Dante's bureaucratic hell had begun.

Two weeks later I called the DMV office. As you might well imagine, trying to reach a live thinking person in Sacramento is difficult enough, trying to reach a live thinking person at the DMV in Sacramento is like trying to wrest the twitter machine away from Captain Ouchie Foot.

As there was little to no work in February and March, I had plenty of time to spend on the DMV phone trees. And acquainting myself with all manner of unbearable On Hold music. Did you know there are many sub genres of this unique category? In addition to smooth jazz, there's soft Euro-house, crappy classic rock cover songs, and the ever popular get-me-out-of-this-elevator-or-I'll-murder-someone melodies.

Eventually, I was told to cool my jets, because any mail sent to the Sacramento headquarters can take up to 8 weeks to process.

8 weeks to open a damn envelope?

I mailed the documents in Mid-January. By mid March I had heard nothing and we were well into 2020's next shitstorm. The one that shut down all DMV offices and made the hope of getting a valid registration in my hand as distant as the last library ever visited by the clueless cockwomble who has made us all tired of So. Much. Winning.

My daughter has now been driving the registration-less vehicle for more than 7 months. I have no idea how this thing will resolve itself. I don't even know the whereabouts of all the documents I had faithfully mailed to the dullards in Northern California.

Or at least I didn't until I put on some latex gloves and reached in the mailbox for my daily of deluge of direct mail, savings-draining bills and solicitations from wealthy Chinese investors who will pay cash money for my house.

Because there, amongst the printed detritus of the average 44 year old American male mail, were the original documents I sent off to Sacramento so many months ago.

They came wrapped in this...

Holy Shit 2020.

And it's only May.