Blank Stare

Okay, so this is seriously post dated again. Deal with it.

I have found that moving to the great state of Pennsylvania (notice that I didn't say PA, everyone here call this place PA, when I lived in Ohio, did I refer to it as OH, no, I called it Ohio) . . . anyway, when I moved to this great state I have found that they like lots of red tape. Nothing can be done easily, lots of hoops to jump through. I found this out when I started to research the prospect of getting my car registered here.

Now, I must back up and let you know that I started looking into this last summer before we moved. Our car registration in Ohio (not OH) expired the month we were moving. I thought it would be perfect planning to just go ahead and skip the Ohio registration and just get it registered in Pennsylvania since we were going to be living there within 15 days. But no can do, according to the great powers that be, you can't do that, you have to live here first before we can register your car here. And on top of that, you've got 20 days to do it once you move here. Ha, I say, I'll show you. Fine, I registered my car in Ohio for the 15 days of that year that we would be living there. And do you think that I switched my registration within the restrictive window of 20 days. I think not. I will deny that if anyone reading this works for the powers that be. It was my way of giving this state the middle finger.

In my defense, I did start the first step of the process, getting the title for the car, as soon as we moved. Of course, the yahoos sent it to the wrong address and it turned out to be an unforwardable piece of mail. And once we actually did get the title, months later, I called the Ohio people to get the paperwork to get the title transferred and wouldn't you know that Pennsylvania requires that that piece of paper that was unforwardable has to be notarized. Back to the drawing board I went and waited once again. When I finally did receive the correct, notarized piece of paper that I needed to apply for my registration, I went searching for the correct department that I would need to submit these pieces of paper to. And to continue down this negative path that I seemed to be taking, wouldn't you know it that there isn't just a department to go to, you have to go to several places to actually complete the process of getting your car registered. I decided to go through AAA, since we were members, it would be cheaper and according to the people I talked to, I wouldn't need to incur the extra expense of getting our licenses switched over first. Great! Something positive!

So, months later, my husband and I had a kid free morning and took the big step to actually go to AAA and get this thing done. I can't tell you how awful that experience was and if my husband didn't have any grounds to divorce me then, after that day, he sure did! Basically the lady at AAA told me that since I had made that phone call about not having to have my license to register, the law had changed and now you did. I literally banged my hands down on the desk and almost jumped across the desk. What that meant for me, is that I had to once again, postpone this event and find a time to come back. And to add fuel to my fire, I wasn't the one that would be coming back, it would be my hubby because the car was registered in HIS name. This time my hubby caught me as I tried to jump across the desk and try to attack this poor woman. And to continue to press my buttons, she tells me that since we couldn't get a pencil rubbing of our VIN number, we had to go to another location to have that done. Luckily, that location was across the street and it was free. The only positive thing that did come out of that visit. So, as we leave the AAA office, I was fuming, furious and quite on fire. As I storm out of there, I state, loud enough for the entire office to hear, "Another reason to hate the state of Pennsylvania!" My poor hubby, he just followed as close as possible behind me and pushed me out the door.

So, my friends, it's done. My hubby went back a few days later, got the same lady in the AAA office, who didn't seem to have any memory cells of our meeting and got the car registered. It was a sad day when those Ohio tags came off. It was like signing another part of my past away and accepting the fate that I have been given. And to make matters worse, this state only requires one plate in the back. My poor baby is just staring at me with this blank stare. I hate that. I can't stand looking at it. To make me feel better, I will be buying the specialized plates for the van. I think we're going to go with the river otter because it looks cute. And as far as the front is concerned, I think I'm going to have a personalized one that says:

"Get out of my way I learned to drive on the Beltway"