I assure you, I’m STILL leaving a lot of this experience out, so many little quirky things happened, but we’ll leave it at this because this right here is almost longer than a 17m26s video. Enjoy.

Back in September when I officially moved to New York I got my New York State car insurance, as one is supposed to do in order to legally drive for extended periods of time here. I had called my leasing company asking for documentation that would allow me to register my car here. The woman on the phone said she knew what paperwork that was and that it would arrive to me within a few weeks. When a few weeks passed by the paperwork still hadn’t arrived, but I figured maybe they’d be sending the papers with my lease bill to save a stamp… yah, no. And so I called them again and reminded them that they were going to send me paperwork and then the very next day I got three calls for job interviews.

The paperwork does finally show up but a new job during a bad economy plus the holidays equals me not having time to go to the DMV during the week or on Saturdays when the DMV is open at one location nearby, dammit. After a small misunderstanding involving my leasing company’s claims department, my New York insurance agency, and my ex-husband which I won’t go into but GAAARRRARRRRRR I do more research and realize I need more paperwork from my leasing company than what they sent me originally . . . but I still don’t quite have time to deal with this.

Fast forward to April. I finally have time to deal with getting my lease paperwork and it arrives without much of a hitch, aside from that pesky PH people like to put in my first name (YO, it’s F, people, SPELL IT LIKE MY MAMA INTENDED) but I’m basking in the glow of having my paperwork in order… and then all of a sudden it’s May. I’m freaked out that my Vermont inspection is expiring but my insurance is in New York so I can’t just skip town and renew my inspection back in my home town, and I live on a street next to a police precinct that already has ticketed me for “parking too close to a fire hydrant” even though everyone else around here does it too and none of them get tickets. So Dawg calms me down and we put my car into the Parental Bat Cave until I can get to the DMV… then I realize I’m going to Washington DC on a PLANE for Memorial Day and need my photo ID but wouldn’t get the New York one in the mail in time to get on the plane, so the earliest I can go to the DMV is when I’m back from my trip.

I come home from DC with a bad cold and feel like shit so I decide I’ll rest up during the week and get alllllllllll my papers in order for a Saturday trip to the DMV. I even brag at work that I will go to the DMV Saturday to become legal. I will ironically be getting my NYS registration on the last day that my Vermont registration is legal! Dawg proves his Best Boyfriend in the Universe status by offering to get up early with me and drive me to the DMV and be my bodyguard when they ask me dumb questions. I go to sleep with bad DMV dreams in my head and wake up to realize that I cannot find my social security card. Hi, you cannot get a license in the state of New York without that piece of ORIGINAL documentation. So I tear apart my desk and start begging to a deity I don’t believe in to let me find the card and, dur, I find it, and Dawg and I are both all ready to go to the DMV! And he asks me to check the website for the time that the DMV opens…

Did you know that at this time of the year there are no DMVs in the entire state of New York open on Saturdays except the one in Erie, New York?

The fastest trip there is 6 hours, 33 minutes on I-80 W for 368 miles, assuming no traffic. Have you ever been around New York City when the weather is half-way nice? Yah. TRAFFIC.

Soooo, Dawg and I go to IHOP for breakfast instead and I decide that I will go to the DMV at Herald Square in Manhattan on my way into work Monday since the DMV opens at 8:30am but work doesn’t start until 9am.

(Get your laugh in here, it’s ok, I’ll wait.)

I proceed to get pretty shitty sleep on Saturday and Sunday night, dreams of the DMV chasing after me. I have the forethought to email my boss and tell-ask him that I will be in late Monday, “ok?” which he approves, even though I didn’t tell him why. I get up early on Monday and take the J to the E to the F and arrive at Herald Square at 8:05am, plenty of time before the DMV opens!, only to find that the line outside the building is already going around the corner. I take the express elevator up to the 8th floor and wait on line with all the crazy people who were hoping to hurry through the DMV line on the Monday when the Enhanced Driver License is now required to come back into the country from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean (unless you have a valid passport, which I don’t).

I get up to the counter and tell the man what I want to do – go from a non-NY license to a NY license and a non-NY registration to a NY registration – and he sends me on my way to fill out paperwork (there was one form I hadn’t filled out yet) and get on the next line to get my photo taken for my license. I AM SHAKING LIKE A LEAF WHILE I WAIT. And then it’s my turn and I canNOT stop shaking so I fumble my way to the counter and it’s the guy who gave me the paperwork at the information counter and he’s grumpy that I asked him if I give him both my license and my registration paperwork and that I didn’t have my forms of ID out already so while I’m handing them to him he’s not quite registering that my middle name is my middle name even though I said “my middle name is my maiden name” when I handed him the papers and he starts to tell me that I don’t have enough proof of my name change even though every fucking piece of paper says my name on it but some have my middle name spelled out so I get over my shaking fear and I start New York arguing with him about how if my middle name was Ann we wouldn’t be having this discussion and then he looks down at the forms and says, “oh… I didn’t understand” and the lightbulb turns on and we continue with my transaction and he gives me a ticket to get to the next line.

So I wait and wait and wait and finally it’s my turn and… first of all, even though the guy I saw at the other two windows was the same guy both times and KNEW what business I needed to transact, he gave me the wrong kind of ticket. Luckily, I ended up at the window of someone who had the skillset to process both license and registration. But I had roadblocks.

The first roadblock: I got my insurance in September, and the effective date on the card I had with me was January 2009, and in print directly underneath the effective date was a sentence proclaiming that the insurance card could not be used to register my vehicle 45 days past said effective date. Also, I hadn’t filled out a section of the registration I needed to fill out assuming Power of Attorney over my leasing company who authorized me to register the vehicle in New York. I had to run downstairs to Staples to have my insurance company fax me a copy of my insurance card with today’s date as the effective date then I ran upstairs and skipped the line because I had a green piece of paper that said “SKIP THE LINE AND GET AN H TICKET, BUT ONLY TODAY SO YOU BETTER COME BACK TODAY” (hence why I didn’t just throw my hands up and sob and leave the building after I was told I had failed to fill out my paperwork correctly) so I got my H ticket and sat down and emailed my boss that there was a snag at the DMV (heh, had to admit where I was finally) and that I’d be later than I had planned, then waited for my number to be called and then I got to the window and it was the same guy again so I gave him the insurance card but then I had forgotten to fill out the section he’d told me to on the registration and then he realized that I had filled out a form to do with vehicle sales tax completely incorrectly and that I needed my lessor’s “certificate of authority… or tax ID if they don’t have that, and then get another H ticket.”

BACK out into the hallway with me. I call my lease company who hangs up on me during the transfer to the title department so I call again and get over to the title department and they have no flipping idea what a certificate of authority even is so they give me their federal tax ID and I run back in and cut the line again to get another H ticket then I stand at the counter and refill a new state tax form correctly with the federal tax ID included as well as the section of the registration I missed before and my number is called and it’s a different guy this time. So I hand him all my paperwork and forms of ID and just stand there quietly, making no movement, hoping that if I am silent and still that somehow magically everything will come together and I will actually get to LEAVE THE DMV with the items I needed. And then it happened. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a key, placed the key into the lock of a cabinet door, and pulled out LICENSE PLATES FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! And printed A REGISTRATION FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! And a stamped 10-days-to-get-your-inspection-ticket for MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! And I screamed, “YES, YES!!!!!!!” in my head as the man behind the counter slowly finished filling out all the lines he had to in order to make the transaction complete and legitimate. I then thanked him profusely, swooped up all my forms and IDs into my arms, and bolted to the counter where I slowly put all my papers away so as not to have a DC incident where I lose yet another credit card or, worse, my original birth certificate!!!!, and then walk out the door to grab a pretzel and a Coke and call Dawg to tell him that at as of 11:21am on June 1, 2009 I am officially legal in the state of New York. WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

And then I made it all the way to the station I get off at almost every weekday but went south instead of north, because I have to have SOMETHING to humble me back into my place after such an amazing experience, right? Yah. Thanks. :p