Good morning, my marvelous motorists motivated on Monday!
Roads are unremarkable today but I’m paid to remark, so here’s what I’ve got: There’s nothing but a lot of dry, which is piled up high, on both sides of the road, and still a few inches deep on most roadways. The forecast calls for a downpour of solar rays throughout the day, with accumulations reaching 90 degrees in some parts of SoCal. Visibility through the fog is limited only by the curvature of the planet, and while winds will gust at 65 MPH, it’ll only be when you are driving at 65 MPH. Ice is out there, but you’ll need to drive to freaking Canada for it, eh. Rocks are all over the place, but not on any of the roadways. Bottom line—you have a longish and winding strip of pavement to traverse, with no obstacles between you and the office. Go in peace.
The Kdog household had the pleasure of dogsitting this weekend. The subject was a big, lovable, sweet Weimaraner. The dog’s demeanor is great… however, this pooch of 110 pounds is somehow able to produce such fabulous volumes of urine and e coli biscuits that I am certain it defies physics so succinctly that it may qualify as supernatural, but not like in a cool superhero/special power way. I guess not all superpowers are useful or appreciated. The dog ALSO defied the idea of jettisoning these dog by-products OUTside, because why? There’s stuff to sniff, instead of evacuating 200 lbs. of waste product outside! Nope… ol’ boy dutifully held it all, saving that activity for INSIDE the house… over, and over, and over, and over…. all weekend long. So, pretty much the entire weekend was spent cleaning dog messes, trying to launder towels for the NEXT cleanup (nope… couldn’t keep up), and trying to get the dog to agree to impassioned pleas to, just do that OUTside.
I’m even happy to be at work this morning… the office does not smell like urine, nor are there mountains of towels piled about, or sacks of poo filling up the trash cans. It’s a pretty happy place to be, this office, after the very long weekend of extremely demanding dog maintenance.
So, it appears that one of the reasons that CA politicians seem so utterly unconcerned with correcting the abysmal performance of the CA Department of Motor Vehicles is because in Sacramento, right near the capitol building, there’s a DMV office dedicated to those who work in that building, and ONLY those who work in that building. Rumor has it that there are no lines, no waits, none of the stuff that us filthy unwashed gutter dwellers associate expressly with any visit to the DMV.
This is the same DMV that is tasked with ensuring that I pay my money, and renew the registration on my SUV. Only, see, I have not received my renewal notice in the mail yet: and, it’s going to expire… a week ago. Of course, we all know that simply not receiving that notice is no excuse… it still needs to be paid. But, my license plate AND my VIN are “not valid,” as they always were in the past. Somehow, they no longer exist. My efforts to pay, and receive a valid registration card, are simply met with the response that my car does not exist… please bring the registration renewal that we mailed to you into this office. Riiiiight… All I have to do is bring in my registration renewal form—the one that has not appeared, for the car that doesn’t exist—and they’ll get me taken care of. Yep… it’s that stupid.
I am fully confident that if I were to drive around on a public road, that any police officer would be happy to cite me for driving around in an expired-registration vehicle THAT EXISTS.
This is the same agency who I sent $50 to, last year, for “custom personalized license plates.” When you order those, the DMV will spend 8 to 12 weeks manufacturing them, and then will notify the victim—I mean, purchaser—by mail (there’s no other way… email is still a fantastical “future” thing to this agency that DOESN’T EVEN TAKE CREDIT CARDS. I guess I should be happy that they are not still on shiny beads, or giant rocks with holes drilled through ’em). They will notify me by mail, with up to THREE postcards, letting me know to come into a specified DMV office to take possession of my plates. And… I can’t pick up those plates without one of those notification postcards. There is no choice in the matter: I MUST wait to take possession until the day that I have one of those notification postcards in my grubby mitts.
Only… I never got ANY postcard, at all, ever. And, it turns out, if you don’t pick up your plates (after they “have notified you three f’n times!”), they destroy the plates, and that’s the end of the story. Well, other than the fact that the DMV just made $50, and ya don’t get that refunded. Seems a little… scammy to me. At the very best, utterly incompetent.
Oh, I could fill pages with examples of this government agency screwing me over… and volumes if I tried to relate the screwings of my friends and family, too.
But hey… at least CA politicians don’t have to deal with the office visits the same way that us common people do. No word on whether or not they have to deal with disappearing plates… or non-existent vehicles that had damn well be registered ANYHOW… or even whether or not politicians are forced to pay annual registration fees MULTIPLE times for the same car, because the DMV keeps “losing track of those funds” (“sorry, no refunds for that, either… but you want your registration to be renewed, right?”). I know… because I’ve been through that, too. I’m calling the DMV out as the most utterly incompetent agency in our government. Corrupt, even… but I can’t prove the corruption. Thus, I’ll give them the very generous benefit of doubt, and just call them incompetent, worthless, MANDATORY, pains in my tail.
I guess, sure, I’m a little cranky today. You would be too, if you spent the entire weekend cleaning up the same products that the DMV is full of. I think that by tomorrow, I’ll be better. The dog is going back to HIS house, and we’ve got the opportunity to get a good start on house recovery. We’ll evaluate the condition of the house, and if we opt NOT to torch the thing, we’ll work to sterilize and mop and shampoo and launder and scrub and air the house out… it might even NOT smell like sewer within a few days, so that’ll improve my mood. Of course, I’m sure that the DMV will also work diligently to correct these current wrongs, and I’ll get my SUV registration all taken care of. HA! Sorry… just figured I’d throw a little wishful, dreamy, comical fantasy in there!
See you tomorrow… and I promise to rant less. Probably. Maybe. Not sure. We’ll see.