I went to our local Auto Club office bright and early Friday morning. When I was called to the service desk I was full of new RV owner excitement and anticipation. I had that smug feeling one does when you are stepping up and getting your vehicular ducks in a row. Alas, I am down at the first hurdle. During our chatty exchange about the fun I was going to have getting my lovely little wine trailer gussied up and road-ready a dark look suddenly passed over the face of the Auto Club agent. She looked up at me with a sympathetic smile and advised me that the DMV wanted $461 to bring the registration up to date. Of that amount only $205 was actually registration fees and the rest was just good old State of California rip-you-off penalties. The nice Auto Club lady suggested that I go the DMV and ask for a supervisor. She said I should explain the situation and ask for the penalties to be waived. I thanked her and hit the road to the nearest DMV.
Oh, the sweet lady at the Auto Club had made it all sound so possible. What a dehumanizing process. I waited in line for about an hour (so far, so good) and was eventually called to the desk of a nice older gentleman whereupon I explained the circumstances surrounding our procurement of the trailer and asked what could be done. Before I was even finished speaking his head began moving from side to side in a preemptively negative way. I then asked for a supervisor. He got up to go to a desk in the middle of the DMV bullpen. I waited for him, he waited for her. I saw him speak a few words to her finally and she said no and turned to another DMV employee and began talking. He walked back over to me and told me “She said 'No'.” I then asked to speak to her personally and he kind of sagged a bit in his chair, got up and went back to her desk and waited again to be acknowledged. When he returned he told me to go to a different window and wait and when she was available she would come tell me the same thing herself. I went and waited at the new window. In the beginning I was alone, but others joined me one by one as I waited patiently, silently putting together my best argument, maintaining a look of pleasant anticipation on my face as I was inwardly seething. She took her time. She spoke to several people before getting up and walking in my direction. She did not look amused. In fact she looked like she had just gotten a whiff of something quite unpleasant. At this point in my post I would like to offer a visual so that you, the reader, will enjoy the full experience of having been through this with me. This woman was slight, but not with the kind of compactness of a person who has a great physical fitness regimen or the diet of a truly health conscious individual, nay, she had the physical form of a perennial smoker, the weight maintenance achieved when one suppresses one’s appetite by lighting up every half hour. She had grayish tan skin the texture of weathered saddle leather. Her hair was dyed an unnatural shade of blond and she had acrylic nails, slightly yellowed at the edges on her right hand. With a bored affect, she endured my “best argument” for waiving the penalties and as I concluded with an offer to pay the $205 to update the registration she smoothed down her sweater and began her reply in a most monotone, disengaged manner, "Maybe a few years ago I would have waived the penalties, but now California is in a financial tight-squeeze, so the answer is no." I continued my argument, further explaining that the friend who had given me the trailer had not known about the registration being in arrears as she had been concentrating on taking care of her dying mother and working and raising her own daughter and we were interested in helping her get this trailer off of her property so that she did not have to deal with the process herself. Ms. DMV then told me that those circumstances did not happen to me so that there was no valid reason why she should make an exception for me. I then told the DMV demon, who I am certain now had exited the birth canal with a lit cigarette in her mouth, that if we could not come to some compromise the trailer was going to end up in the dump...or...I could pay the State of California, which is in such a pickle, the $205 to update the registration AND all annual registration fees each year from here on out. I asked her, “Which would be better for California? Zero or $205? A rotting hulk in a landfill, or a restored vintage trailer annually registered?” And she said, I kid you not, "I have to be able to sleep at night...I have to treat everyone fairly...If I give you a break then I have to give him and him and her a break" as she pointed to those behind me in the line. Then she raised her voice, "If you cannot afford to pay the fees, maybe you shouldn't have taken on the responsibility of ownership. Do you expect me to make exceptions for everyone in your situation." Well, wasn't that embarrassing? Barely able to contain my frustration, I replied, “No...you should evaluate each case on its individual merits,” but by then I was convinced that she was some kind of automaton, because she twitched a few times then started to repeat herself.
So...we got the hitch, we got the tires and now it will be a while before I have $461. I hope the new owner of Carol's desert property will work with me on storing it there for a few months. You can all safely use the 10 Freeway tomorrow. HA, HA, HA...you've got to laugh or you go a little crazy. With this, on top of the $280 it cost us last week to get our son’s car out of impound after it was predatorily towed from the Pomona Court House parking lot (for not displaying the tags that had not come in the mail yet,) I am keeping California in the black! I hope they thank me! But I won't hold my breath.
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