This article brought to you by Sky Forest Inn Event and Retreat Center
Good morning, commuters… Roads? Phhhffft. Who needs to talk about ‘em. Ain’t nothin’ to say. Easy peasy… just drive on ‘em. Sure, it’s Monday and all, but that ain’t nuttin’ but a thang.
So… random story time. This event is true… every word of it. You may find yourself skeptical, but if I’ve ever not been lyin’, today’s the day I’m not.
Well, over a year ago—hold on, let me rephrase: WELL over a year ago… I ordered vanity plates for Mrs. Kdog’s car. She wanted a little something to make the car stand out, and to have an easy-to-remember plate.
When vanity plates are ordered, the DMV happily accepts the payment, then sends the order to the prisoners, who are SUPPOSED to start banging the things into shape right away. In reality, though, it takes a few weeks, since inmates are apparently super-busy making other things like shanks and Pruno, or carrying-on romantically with other inmates, or even just engraving neck tattoos. Or maybe it takes a long time to order from the menu at the dining facility… or they’re busy looking for where that darn bar of soap slipped away to while in the shower. Whatever… it takes 8-12 weeks before the plates will be ready, according to the DMV website.
Once the plates have actually been made, they are sent to a local DMV (which the customer pre-selects), and notice is then sent to the customer that it’s time to come and get ’em. The DMV claims that it will notify the customer three times, within a couple of weeks… but if the plates have not been claimed within 10 days after the last notice, they will be destroyed (the plates, not the customer, I think). Not only are they gone forever, but it probably hurts the feelings of the prisoner who lovingly created them. Oh, this “system” incidentally makes it virtually impossible to make an appointment with the DMV for plate pick-up, as (A) appointments are only available ABOUT three months or farther in advance, and (B) a person can only have ONE appointment pending at any given time. (It used to be that one could make unlimited numbers of appointments and I used to go through and regularly schedule a DMV appointment for about once every week, perpetually… then, when something came up, I could just use the next closest appointment, and get business taken care of within days, in less than eight hours spent in the office… but, no more. The DMV got wise to customers finding ways to make the system work conveniently.) Therefore, since a person has NO IDEA when the notice of plate availability will arrive, he can’t make an appointment with any degree of accuracy. Sure, there’s a super slim chance of hazarding a lucky guess… and, yes, I tried, but failed.
Well, we were never notified that our plate was ready. Maybe there was a prison riot, or maybe the guy who was assigned our plate was in solitary. Perhaps he got transferred to the underwear manufacturing cell block. I don’t know… we never got notice. We waited for a year… “Well over a year…” and finally gave up.
But, hope springs eternal, and ever the optimist, I ordered again a few months ago. Of course, I was unable to order the same plate, because I had “failed to pick up the plates within the time allotted,” and per DMV directive, they had now been destroyed (probably by angry, pruno-drunken prisoners with hurt feelings, but new underwear).
Whatever… my original request had been taken off the list of available options. So, I ordered a different plate, our second-choice candidate of clever plates. It was okay… but far from first choice. Sometimes, you just have to settle. Honestly, though… settling didn’t seem great. While I thought the first plate was clever, the second one just seemed a little too… too “second choice.”
Well, after three or four months, we got a notice in the mail… the plates were ready to pick up!
I went to the DMV to retrieve these vanity plates. With no appointment, my best bet was to go early. The joint (the DMV office, not prison) opens at 8:00 a.m… I arrived at 6:30 a.m., and got into the already-substantial line of those trying to avoid spending the entire day there. Many people in the line looked like regular folks, but I’m almost certain that there were a LOT of inmates there, too, for some reason. Whatever.
Amazingly, at 8:00 a.m., the doors opened. This was somewhat of a relief, I might add, as the line-waiters—now literally numbering in the hundreds—had all been subject to the pre-8:00 a.m. sermon being delivered by a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher, who was armed with pamphlets, a legit permit, and a fiery message that we were all going straight to hell (without passing GO or collecting $200) unless we repented right NOW. His sermon was long and loud. In my entire life, I’d never have guessed that anything could make me think, “Whew… sure am glad I’m entering the DMV office now,” but that actually happened. I’m also going to venture a guess that this guy is probably a prison chaplain.
I entered the building… the same building where I had gone recently and spent EIGHT hours waiting. Eight… Five hours the first day, then three hours the following day, just for a simple license renewal. There was no telling how long today would take… whether I’d be in and out without needing to shave, or get a haircut, or trim my fingernails; or if I’d emerge to learn that in addition to becoming a grandfather, maybe I’d even be a great-grandfather. Would I do a bullet… a nickel… even a dime? Was there credit for time served? With the DMV, you just never know.
I entered general population, and waited for my number to be called… and it happened within 15 minutes! This felt a lot like what I imagine winning the lottery might be like, only, forget the stupid lottery… I WAS GETTING THINGS DONE IN LESS THAN A DAY AT THE FREAKIN’ DMF’nV!!!
After my celebratory dance was over (followed by the paramedics restoring my consciousness with smelling salts), I caught my breath, and ran to the designated window. I gave the girl the required paperwork, including the notice I had received in the mail… which indicated that my “second choice” plates were in this office, ready for my retrieval. She took the slip and headed for the backroom (or maybe there’s a prison back there?) to get the plates.
She returned from the yard with the plates a few minutes later. Now, as she was processing the paperwork, I happened to glace at the manila envelope that contained them. Somehow, the girl had grabbed the wrong set of plates from the back room/prison. In black marker, somebody (maybe a prisoner?) had written that, contained within that very envelope, was a pair of plates bearing my FIRST choice combination of letters. Wait… what?
I asked her to look inside the envelope and see what the actual plates were: they were, indeed, the plates I had requested over a year ago… the ones I had given up on; the ones whose destruction I had been informed of… the ones that were lost to me. THOSE plates. Not my second choice “shows,” but my actual “wins”! Well, upon realizing that she had somehow grabbed the WRONG set of plates from the back room (they did NOT match the notification slip I had handed to her) she apologized for her mistake, and said she’d go get the right plates…
Naturally, I stopped her. I explained that while she had, indeed, gotten the WRONG plates, that THESE were really the RIGHT plates! I explained the timeline, the story… which only baffled and confused her. She said that “second choice plates” had been completed several days ago… but that these accidental, first choice plates (the ones I had ordered over a year ago!) were only manufactured two days ago! She said that the notice had not even been sent to me yet. Now, I have no idea what the real story is… she displayed a very high propensity for getting confused… during the entire rest of our transaction, it was evidently very difficult to separate the pile of paperwork for each different plate from the other. I had to fill out rejection paperwork (uhhhh…. I used what was available on the counter: the state pen) for the loser-second choice plates, and my $50 fee won’t be refunded… just ’cause. But, in the end (Note to self: Replace “in the end” with other wording before publication… prison showers and all), I walked out of a Medium Security California Department of Motor Vehicles office, at 8:45 AM, with the plates that I had wanted from the very beginning!
I feel like I just got early parole. Well, to be clear, this statement is also like the lottery-win feeling, because I don’t ACTUALLY know what either one of those really feels like. Just saying… Whatever… I’m pretty glad, not only to have gotten the plates I wanted, but an actual early release, too… on my own freakin’ recognizance.
That day, I celebrated. As soon as my freedom was granted, I had a Gen Pop, which was a riot to drink. They cell those both in six packs, and just solitary. It was so good it gave me shiv-ers. You drink it through the hole in the can. Sorry… I don’t mean to offend… I don’t want to be an offender. Offender. Oh, sorry… did I repeat offender? I know… I should work on better writing… better sentencing. STIFFER sentencing.