The MVD and the Manic Mom
I'm SO done with the back to school insanity.
I'm not going to blog about it yet. Mostly because I don't want to cry while sitting at my computer. But let me give you a taste of how crazy my brain is getting--
Way back in April it became painfully obvious that despite all my hoping and praying, M was not going to be ready to take the driver's test before her permit expired. So looking at my schedule, we found an early release school day shortly before the expiration date and went into the MVD to renew. It was a pain-- is going into the MVD (DMV, for you Californians) ever a painless experience??-- but at least it was over, and I had grand hopes that we wouldn't need to return until M was ready to get a license. Then Saturday night Terence took M out for some night driving (she still needs about 4 hours worth of night driving) and realized that she didn't have her permit. Normally she keeps it in the van but I'd stuck in my purse the last time the van was in the shop and had never remembered to take it out. (No, she doesn't carry it around. She used to conveniently "forget" to bring it with her every time I wanted her to practice driving. So I took charge of it.) Anyway, I hunted through my purse and checked the expiration date to make sure I had her current permit, not her old one.
Then I did a double take.
It still expired on the original date in May. But it was the new (supposedly renewed) permit. It had been valid for a whopping ten days. Ugh. Now with M going back to school we needed to get back into the MVD as soon as possible and get a new permit (again). Monday I got online to fill out the application, and while I was at it, decided to fill out an application for Terence and I to get our travel driver's licenses. (Arizona is one of the states whose driver's licenses suck. Or something. Homeland Security says they are not good enough ID's to board an airplane. So Arizona, instead of upgrading everyone's driver license, is now offering "travel driver's licenses." Go in, pay a fee-- of course-- give them a gazillion documents including utility bills, bank statements, rabies certificates, and sworn affidavits from your great-grandmother attesting to your identity, and then they will finally grant you this magic driver's license that looks exactly the same as your old one. Except it has a star in the corner.
Great. Good to know that a star means we really are safe to let on an airplane. Or something.
Anyway, there is one of those 3rd party MVD locations right by the kids' school. I've never been there, but apparently they do driver license stuff-- previously we had always driven to an official MVD location about 40 minutes away. So we dropped by there.
OK, this is one of the few times when government bureaucracy wins over private "efficiency." The office was jam-packed with people and they had us signing in on clipboards, old-school style. There was nowhere to sit, and not really anywhere to stand either. We waited for about fifteen minutes and they only called up ONE new person during that time (and there were at least seven people ahead of us on our clipboard-- the driver license one-- and who knows how many people on the vehicles services clipboard.
It was going to be a long, difficult wait. Especially since three of us needed ID's. So obsessively I started going through my giant envelope of paperwork. (I kid you not. It was one of the envelopes I use for sending out my books and it was full.) After rifling through it several times I started to panic. I didn't have M's birth certificate! Even though I knew I had taken it out of the safe and added it to the pile! I decided I must have put it down and forgotten to add it to the towering pile of documents proving that yes, I really am Heidi, and yes, Terence really is Terence and not Talmadge (*giggle* that's the original name on his birth certificate). I finally managed to get the attention of a harried employee and she informed me that no, M's expired permit and her SS card would not be good enough. She had to have her birth certificate.
OH my gosh.
So we loaded the kids back in the van and went to pay the water bill. I told Terence we'd head back home and get the birth certificate before heading to the farther-away-but-probably-less-busy official MVD. Then while we were sitting in parking lot of the water company, I thumbed through the paperwork one more time.
First paper I saw? M's birth certificate.
I wanted to scream. Or pull my hair out. I think I did get a little hysterical. I certainly had some choice words to say about my lack of brain cells. Terence was unruffled though. He let my hysteria flow around and past and then drove us to the MVD. Where we all had places to sit and then were helped within five minutes by a very professional, efficient, happy employee who managed to plow her way through a sea of paperwork and issue us two travel licenses and one renewed driver's permit. (Really renewed this time.)
Whew.
And that was just Monday morning...
Someone let me know when the week is over please!!!
I'm not going to blog about it yet. Mostly because I don't want to cry while sitting at my computer. But let me give you a taste of how crazy my brain is getting--
Way back in April it became painfully obvious that despite all my hoping and praying, M was not going to be ready to take the driver's test before her permit expired. So looking at my schedule, we found an early release school day shortly before the expiration date and went into the MVD to renew. It was a pain-- is going into the MVD (DMV, for you Californians) ever a painless experience??-- but at least it was over, and I had grand hopes that we wouldn't need to return until M was ready to get a license. Then Saturday night Terence took M out for some night driving (she still needs about 4 hours worth of night driving) and realized that she didn't have her permit. Normally she keeps it in the van but I'd stuck in my purse the last time the van was in the shop and had never remembered to take it out. (No, she doesn't carry it around. She used to conveniently "forget" to bring it with her every time I wanted her to practice driving. So I took charge of it.) Anyway, I hunted through my purse and checked the expiration date to make sure I had her current permit, not her old one.
Then I did a double take.
It still expired on the original date in May. But it was the new (supposedly renewed) permit. It had been valid for a whopping ten days. Ugh. Now with M going back to school we needed to get back into the MVD as soon as possible and get a new permit (again). Monday I got online to fill out the application, and while I was at it, decided to fill out an application for Terence and I to get our travel driver's licenses. (Arizona is one of the states whose driver's licenses suck. Or something. Homeland Security says they are not good enough ID's to board an airplane. So Arizona, instead of upgrading everyone's driver license, is now offering "travel driver's licenses." Go in, pay a fee-- of course-- give them a gazillion documents including utility bills, bank statements, rabies certificates, and sworn affidavits from your great-grandmother attesting to your identity, and then they will finally grant you this magic driver's license that looks exactly the same as your old one. Except it has a star in the corner.
Great. Good to know that a star means we really are safe to let on an airplane. Or something.
Anyway, there is one of those 3rd party MVD locations right by the kids' school. I've never been there, but apparently they do driver license stuff-- previously we had always driven to an official MVD location about 40 minutes away. So we dropped by there.
OK, this is one of the few times when government bureaucracy wins over private "efficiency." The office was jam-packed with people and they had us signing in on clipboards, old-school style. There was nowhere to sit, and not really anywhere to stand either. We waited for about fifteen minutes and they only called up ONE new person during that time (and there were at least seven people ahead of us on our clipboard-- the driver license one-- and who knows how many people on the vehicles services clipboard.
It was going to be a long, difficult wait. Especially since three of us needed ID's. So obsessively I started going through my giant envelope of paperwork. (I kid you not. It was one of the envelopes I use for sending out my books and it was full.) After rifling through it several times I started to panic. I didn't have M's birth certificate! Even though I knew I had taken it out of the safe and added it to the pile! I decided I must have put it down and forgotten to add it to the towering pile of documents proving that yes, I really am Heidi, and yes, Terence really is Terence and not Talmadge (*giggle* that's the original name on his birth certificate). I finally managed to get the attention of a harried employee and she informed me that no, M's expired permit and her SS card would not be good enough. She had to have her birth certificate.
OH my gosh.
So we loaded the kids back in the van and went to pay the water bill. I told Terence we'd head back home and get the birth certificate before heading to the farther-away-but-probably-less-busy official MVD. Then while we were sitting in parking lot of the water company, I thumbed through the paperwork one more time.
First paper I saw? M's birth certificate.
I wanted to scream. Or pull my hair out. I think I did get a little hysterical. I certainly had some choice words to say about my lack of brain cells. Terence was unruffled though. He let my hysteria flow around and past and then drove us to the MVD. Where we all had places to sit and then were helped within five minutes by a very professional, efficient, happy employee who managed to plow her way through a sea of paperwork and issue us two travel licenses and one renewed driver's permit. (Really renewed this time.)
Whew.
And that was just Monday morning...
Someone let me know when the week is over please!!!
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