The License Bureau
We bought a new, well used but already well loved, van recently. The freedom it gives me is wonderful. Not only can I leave the house while V is at work once again, but we actually own a vehicle that fits the whole family. A family of five that includes two teenagers doesn’t fit in to the usual sedan very comfortably.
As is often the case, getting it licensed was a bit of a challenge. Missouri requires a safety inspection that’s usually more of an opportunity for dishonest auto mechanics to find repairs to over charge people for, and for the honest auto mechanics to spend more time than they can spare for not much money. But we got through that, collected an extra form with signatures because we didn’t cross a “t” correctly on the old title or something along those lines, and made our final trip to the license bureau.
On an earlier visit, we had encountered a clerk who gave us obviously wrong information regarding state laws. We are sadly used to that kind of less than expert service, so we pretty much take it in stride. On our return trip, we had a somewhat entertaining encounter with the same clerk.
It was just myself and RM on this trip. When you walk in, you take one of those little numbered tickets from a dispenser; different colored tickets for different tasks like renewing your driver’s license, renewing your tags or registering a new vehicle. Ours was a white one, number 79. We took a seat in the rows and rows of folding chairs to wait our turn. RM was entertaining herself by climbing from chair to chair, then by walking the floor and picking up anything she could find. And what she found was an abandoned white ticket, number 77.
The people around me said “Hey, I guess you’re number 77 now.” But I felt guilty about that thinking there was a number 78 out there waiting who still should go ahead of me. So when 77 was called I knew no one would get up, but 78 was called at the same time and no one stood up for that either. So I went over to the doorway to the room with the clerks and waited for 79 to get called.
The clerk we had talked to before stepped out, looked at me, and asked what number I was. Our conversation went something like this:
Clerk: “What number do you have?”
Me: “I have number 79. But no one got up when you called 78, and 77 was on the floor.”
Clerk (glancing around the room full of people quietly sitting and waiting in their chairs): “Were they OK?”
Me (pausing for a minute to try and figure out what she was saying): “No, not a person on the floor. The ticket, number 77, someone left it on the floor.”
Clerk: “I guess you are next then.”
So I suppose my words weren’t precise enough. Perhaps I should have spoken more clearly; saying “ticket 77″ was on the floor, not just “number 77.” But still, I’d like to think that everyone would have noticed if a person was unconscious or fallen ill and lying on the floor, even the clerks in the next room. And I also like to think no one would assume with a sick or injured person lying on the floor, I’d do something other than think “Oh goody, now I’ll get my turn faster.”
In the end though, our business got completed. I managed to sign in all the appropriate places and hand over all the right forms while watching RM run all around the room and slipping off to follow her when she went out of sight a couple of times. I got all my proper forms and stickers and went out to the van and started buckling RM into her car seat. That same clerk walked out of the building, looked around, then walked up to the van.
I supposed I could take partial blame for this last slip up, due to my distraction with RM or the mind-numbing that comes from sitting and waiting in government offices. But I won’t, I’ll put the blame all on her this time.
She had forgotten to give me back my ID.
I’m glad everything went well.
Comment by allison | July 13, 2007