My Day in Town

Yes, I said "in town".  When I have to go into "town" I try to get all my "town" stuff done at the same time.  I hate driving and I really hate driving in the heat.  So today was an "in town" day.  We (Stephen, Rhett and I) left around 10 am.  I needed to get my emissions tested and didn't want to wait till the last day.  The testing place is over by Glade's work.  When I pulled up about 10:30, the line was all the way out to the street.  I have never seen it like that before!  So we decided to go see Dad and then have lunch and  THEN get the emissions tested.  Right as we were leaving, a big RV pulled in.  We went and got a donut, talked to Glade for a bit and then met Mom for lunch.  Rhett had been begging for Panda Express so I told him we would go today.

Close to 45 min later, we went back to check the testing place.  Now the lines were only about 4 cars deep, still sucky, but do-able.  The crazy thing is that the big RV was still the last one in line.  We waited it out and were through in about 25 min or so.  AND, I passed!  Seems like they always fail me for something stupid like a gas cap.  We still had some time before we needed to get to Rhett's ortho appointment so we went and did  a little shopping.  Yes, I got a cute dress.  By now it was close to 1:30 and time for Rhett's apt.  We dropped him off and headed to go pick Nick up from work.  See, we have been trying to find a time to get Nick and Stephen in to get their permits.  Since we were in "town"....  Nick was half an hour late getting back from his job (he's working with a friend who does cement), so now I was getting nervous about how much time we had to hit the DMV.  It is opening nite for Oliver! after all.  Swung back around to pick up Rhett who was now 40 min later than they promised me for his apt.  After waiting in the car a few minutes, I went right in, walked to the back, found his room and said "Is he done yet?"  I hate this new Dr. (I don't actually hate him, he was a friend from HS), but he is seriously slow and it's really painful.  Finally we show up to the DMV at 2:45.

Needless to say I was in a panic.  This is the line just to check in.  We were supposed to be at the theater with makeup and dinner done by 5:30.  It's almost 3pm and this is where we were.  I decided to just go for it!  The real problem came when we were actually at the window.  See, Nick's legal papers are a little bit tricky.  We had to send these papers back to his Grandma to sign the last time we tried this.  Now all our ducks were in a row and I wasn't too worried.  UNTIL, the lady noticed that there's a place to "check" what your relationship is to the person and Grandma didn't "check" anything.  She was all in a frenzy because it wan't checked and now we couldn't proceed.  I (trying to stay nice) said I would check it, she has legal papers right in front of her that clearly state what the relationship is.  Well, she wasn't going for that because Grandma needed to check it.  She left to the back for a good 15 minutes trying to figure out what to do.  Grrrrr!!!  Finally she came back and spoke in very hushed tones telling me to check something.  And be careful to do it correctly!  It was now 4:10, but finally they were ready to go actually take the test.  They both passed!! Barely, but they did.  It's 4:25 and I'm thinking we are in good shape. We'll only be a little late to the theater and that's not a huge deal.  Whew!

But wait, and wait some more... and some more... I guess there was a huge back log of actually printing people's cards.  So 40 min later, they finally call their names.  I have now made arrangements to get the kids at home to the theater and what to do with dinner, but us getting there was going to be sticky.  You see, I had showered and left the house early that morning.  My hair was in goofy braids and I was not in good clothes at all. Nick had been working outside doing cement all day and was filthy and stinky.  We could not just go straight to the theater.  We walk to the counter to get their cards and wait, they put some other guys picture on Nick's card.  NO!!  Now we have to wait while they dig through to find his original application, manually reenter all his info and print him a new card.  Now, he is at the back of the line for the printer.  Oh yah, and while printing his batch, they ran out of the little cards and had to go get a new pack and reload the printer.  I was seriously trying not to cry.  I was so done with this place.  Finally at 5:15 we leave.  Now it's a good half hour drive home, in rush hour traffic.  

Luckily the show didn't start till 7.  We got home in enough time to stuff some pizza Whitley had made in our faces, change clothes and get cleaned up.  Nick showered and I straightened my hair and in less than 20 min we were back out the door.  We arrived at the theater about 6:20.  Nothing like coming into opening nite in a frenzied mess!  

I would like to say that my trial with the DMV is over, but I have to go back in a week or so.  I took the title to our camper in to get transferred so we don't have any more issues like last summer.  Well apparently you only have 15 days to do that once someone signs it over to you.  Ummm, it's been 2 years.  It also seems to be that there is a penalty every month you don't do it so now there's $100 worth of fines attached to it.  She gave me a form to have him sign saying the date is written wrong and then I can come back penalty free.  Now, this does seem dishonest, but when the person working there says it's perfectly acceptable.. I'm in.  Now I'm just counting the days till I can go back!!! (serious sarcasm)