I have been to hell, and I spell it....DMV
I went to the DMV to renew the tabs on the Beetle, which has been in storage for a long time.
The title still says our first address on it and my wife didn't change her name when we married, so when I went to the counter with the title of the car and my ID in my hand the woman just could not possibly imagine where to begin. I was informed that without the same address and same name 'there would just be no way' to prove that we were, in fact, married.
I told her to run a search of my name and she would see multiple other vehicles registered together with my wife - as well as more than one home and the fact that we did indeed live at the same address.
"I can ask my supervisor...but I know what the answer is going to be"
So she wouldn't even look up the driver standing in front of her to see if she could find the information she claimed to need.
I told her we couldn't POSSIBLY be the first married couple not to have the same last name, that this couldn't be that hard.
"Well without the same last name there's just NO WAY to prove you're married..." was her defense.
NO WAY? Really? No possible way that a state employee, standing at a computer with access to the records of the State of MN could POSSIBLY find out if two people were married? If only marriages were licensed or registered with the State or governing body somehow....but HOW??? It truly was a problem that would baffle the most brilliant minds.
After all that she was still completely unable - no, to be fair and honest she was completely unwilling to try - to help.
So instead I asked if there was a form my wife could fill out that would allow me to come pick up tabs for the car in her name.
I was handed a small piece of paper with a few lines of information on it that would indicate that I am allowed to do so - all of the information for which is on the vehicle title I was holding.
So there was nothing stopping me from filling it out in the parking lot and getting the tabs since I can sign my wife's name and they wouldn't have ANY way of proving I had done otherwise. I pointed this out. In return, she told me that it would be better for me to come back tomorrow, as waiting until June 1st meant I could buy 2012 stickers instead of buying 2011 and having to come right back and buy 2012.
So, in the end, she didn't really care that there was no way to prove anything she said she needed proved - or that the system they had in place was as iron clad as a post-it note. She just didn't really feel like helping anyone right then, or maybe just didn't feel like helping me...and if telling me how to get out of paying for tabs for this year was enough to make me go away without being helped, she was totally fine with helping me do that.
>> Unrelated Footnote - Conversation between me and one of the boys on this sunny, warm spring afternoon while I was typing the blog above:
Owen: "There's nothing to do"
Me: "There's a LOT to do"
Owen "...I guess so."
And off he went to go play
Either I am a Jedi or he wasn't really invested in that argument.
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