Have any of you ever had to deal with the Department of Motor Vehicles?!?What an incredible nightmare!
With our recent move to Illinois (did i mention that we just moved to Illinois after not being together as a family for over 600 days?), we had to make the trek to a local Secretary of State office to get new drivers licenses, plates, title transfers and titles for our automobiles. So being the perfectionist, reliable, conscientious, list making, logical first born she is, Ruthie (my wife) began in earnest about three weeks ago planning for this mornings' nightmare experience! She carefully gathered the four different pieces of identification, one from each of the following four categories for both of us...
Written signature, Date of Birth, Social Security number, Residency/ Personal Data.
Since the facility we needed to be at opened at 8AM, we left the house in the wee early morning hours to stand in a line with about twenty to thirty other people who had come to the Secretary of State's office for various reasons. After standing in line for about twenty minutes, the door was opened and we were directed into what had the feel of "livestock chutes" as the very grumpy looking (even at 8:02 am) employees told us where to go and where to stand. As we finally made our way to the counter in the middle of the room, the loudspeaker continued to call out number after number as we tried to give the gentleman our several pieces of identification.
Ruthie went first and handed over her old drivers license (from another state), a birth certificate, a marriage license and a utility bill to our home addressed to me. The gentleman looked over the information and proceeded to give Ruthie her "magic" ticket (it was really just a "please take a number" receipt, but it seemed like a "magic" ticket to me). i then began handing all of my information to this gentlemen including the same utility bill Ruthie had just handed the guy... at which point he asked me if i had the "necessary" residency proof. My response was "yes, this utility bill right here.." He then stated that Ruthie couldn't use the same utility bill that he had only moments before indicated was "good to go". At that point my lovely bride began to boil over, and told the man, "Hey we're married!?!" His response..."Ma'am I need a piece of mail with your name on it..." She began to protest, "When I called in and later checked this information on- line there was no indication..." i then jumped in to stop her because the guy who had up to that point been helping us, pretty much shut down and began his mantra of, "I can't help you ma'am...unless you have a piece of mail...blah, blah, blah." i then told Ruthie to stop arguing because this guy wasn't going to help her any more, he was in a word... done! As my wife exited the facility with none of the necessary paper work completed, it was pretty clear that she was ticked off... and let me tell you something, Ruthie is a pretty sweet woman but making her mad at 8:07 am is as bad an idea that one can have...
As she left the building obviously upset, i kept a bit of distance behind her (i didn't want to get hit frankly) and remember the guy i mentioned who was directing traffic down the livestock chutes??? He was at the door and remarked to another dude in a suit with a State of Illinois name tag..."There goes another one (meaning the now very angry Ruthie)... we'll see that dozens of times today", As i walked by and out of the door. Ruthie was pretty much in the car at this point and i felt like i simply couldn't leave and so i wheeled around on my heels and went back to the "cattle chute" guy. As i began to explain to him what happened, he asked me if we were married. When i began to explain why we were turned away, he instructed me to go get my wife, come back in and tell the guy who had denied us our "magic" ticket that "Rick" had ok'd everything. At this point, i'm thinking... this Rick guy must be like the Bureau of Motor Vehicles Godfather or somethin'!
Ruthie came back in and we began the whole process again only this time with "Rick" (the BMV Godfather) hovering close by so that "magic" ticket man wouldn't give us a hard time... and so after jumping through all the State of Illinois hoops including another written driver's test (one of the the first questions the perfectionist, reliable, conscientious, list making, logical first born one asked me when we were done was ..."How many did you miss on the written test... I didn't miss any!")... we finally walked out of the facility. But that was only after being told in one of the last checkout stations we would go through that morning, that we would need to come back again because there was a signature missing on one of the documents we had provided as proof of ownership of one of our vehicles...
Nice huh?
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