my new ride

Before we went on vacation my car's air conditioning went out. For two weeks. It was not fun. On returning I called the dealer and found out that they had one necessary part, but the other one wasn't due to be released from overseas for at least another week. If we were lucky.

Yikes. Another two weeks in summer in Florida, without A/C? I called back and asked if they would consider a trade-in, as they would be able to install the part and sell the car when it came in. Long story short, the answer was yes and I now found myself in quite the spiffy new blue car. Yay me!


While we waited for the endless paperwork to be completed, the kid got to test "ride" another item on the sales floor ...

dmv

I had to go to the DMV today to get my residential parking permit. Over the weekend I had checked their website, where I could have ordered one online, which would have gotten to me in ten days (or more.) Not so great if I want to park on the block and not get a ticket over the next ten days (or more.) The alternate to online ordering would be to visit a service location. I thought I'd be better safe than sorry by calling the station and confirming that I could get what I needed from them. Great idea, except the endless phone loop that was the DMV answering system took ten minutes (or more) of punching extension after extension to finally arrive at a taped voice that advised me to order it online or visit a service location. Isn't being a grown-up and dealing with bureaucracy GREAT?

So I had to go to the DMV today to get my residential parking permit. The line wasn't too long and I got to the counter to be told by the attendant that my car dealership were LIARS and they should have processed the parking permit when they processed the registration. O.K., but that didn't happen, so how can I get a parking permit? He led me over to a public computer and suggested I order it online. Sigh.

While I was printing out the receipt, with the attendant actually attending me, a cab driver started calling over to him from his place on the line to help him. A back and forth started, with the cabby yelling at the attendant not to yell at him and me crouching lower and lower by the computer in case the gunfire was about to start. The attendant waved the cabby away and looked at my receipt. This won't do, you'll get a ticket. Sigh.

The cabby started arguing with him again. The attendant looked at me and then went behind the counter and started to process a new, correct, registration sticker for me, which in the normal DMV course of events would have taken ten days (or more) to accomplish.

I thanked him profusely and headed out, back to the non-DMV real world, as he reminded me to call the car dealer and tell them they were LIARS. I silently thanked the cabby for being such a jerk, which spun the wheel of fortune my way. A person can use all the help the universe has to offer.

why does having anything done to your car take FOREVER?

sweet ride

We're back in D.C. and I'm back in my beloved Honda.

But don't tell...I kind of miss our big-ass, big-fun rental...