I’ve become a regular customer at the DMV. As faithful readers know, my teenage daughter recently got her driver’s license (after two attempts). This afternoon, she and I will appear at the DMV for the third time this week in an attempt to register her car, a hand-me-down Jeep that is several years older than she is.
The Jeep was bought new by my sister, who drove it for several years and then mostly parked it for use as a second car. It’s fun for cruising around the beach on a nice day, but it’s not the most comfortable ride. There’s no air conditioning, and if it rains, plan on getting wet.
My sister gave the Jeep to our mom a few years ago for use on the backcountry trails when mom retired and moved out to the boonies. After Mom died earlier this year, my brother, sister and I figured she’d want my daughter to have the Jeep. We searched everywhere for the title but could not find it.
Mom was always pretty disorganized; the title is probably folded up in an Altoids tin tucked inside an old purse or something. (While we were searching, I could imagine her saying, “No, not THERE, stupids! It’s in the saffron envelope behind the spice rack!” Or wherever the hell it actually is…)
So I had to go to the DMV to get a new title. On my first trip, they gave me a stack of forms to fill out, including an affidavit that my sister, brother and I had to sign to waive our rights as the heirs to this fabulous vehicle, which would fetch the princely sum of $1,000 on the open market.
Then I went back yesterday with the forms to get the title, which I had to have to get an insurance binder, which is a necessary precondition for the vehicle registration. I’m going back today for that. Between the insurance, fees and wasted time, I’m spending twice as much as the vehicle is worth to get this clunker street legal.
But it will be nice to have MY car back. My daughter appropriated my car for her own exclusive use when she got her license earlier this month, and she has insisted on driving me everywhere I go and also invents the most flimsy excuses to drive herself places.
To celebrate my car’s restoration to its rightful owner, I’m taking a solo road trip this coming weekend to Ala-gottdamn-bama to see my ailing granny, and then swinging back through the Florida Panhandle to see my other old grandma. I just hope I still remember how to drive.