De-NIED!!

The freshest thing I have going was I got denied at the DMV when I attempted to get my 1989 Honda VTR 250 tagged and licensed. I'm going through the Abandoned Vehicle Process (or 'AVP', as the DMV calls it) and had filled out all the appropriate paperwork, which is not too bad, actually; you just have to have patience. 

First you have to fill out something called a 'VSA 40', or 'Vehicle Removal Certificate ' and pay $40, which takes the VIN of your vehicle and runs it through an owner database to see if it is registered in somebody else's name, and if it IS, they send them a letter telling them they have so many days to pick it up; if it is NOT, about two weeks after that you can file another piece of paperwork (a VSA 17A - Certificate of Title and Registration) to get the title - but there's a catch. In the wording of the VSA 17A, you have to WAIT twenty-one days AFTER the VSA 40 clears...that's twenty-one WORK days, which, after the VSA 40 clears, is about a month! I did not know this - all it says in the Oh-ficial DMV paperwork is "twenty-one days." 

So twenty-one consecutive days after what I thought was spoken of in the paperwork, my wife and I went up to the DMV to get some tags for her car, and I attempted to get my VTR titled and tagged, but much to my surprise I was informed of the 'twenty-one WORK day' thing by the rather brusque female official safely ensconced behind a sheet of thick Plexiglas. 

Despite my protestations that "That's not what it says in the paperwork!", she simply looked at me with that half-lidded faint ghost of a smile and told me I would have to make another appointment for next week, when the aforementioned "twenty-one days" would have Oh-ficially passed. So that's what I did.

We were able to get my wife's car tagged though, so at least I accomplished half of what we set out to do. I made another appointment and breathlessly awaited the passing of seven days before going back up to the DMV with all my VTR 250 paperwork, looking forward to actually riding this bike in the fall colors this year, but AGAIN, the garage gods screwed me! 

After much scrutiny of my Abandoned Vehicle paperwork - and consulting one or two other DMV personnel - the lady laid two motorcycle plates on her side of the Plexiglas and started tapping away on her computer. My my heart sang because I was finally going to get it licensed and tagged! UNTIL... 

"This VIN is not coming up," she said...

It was a roller coaster of emotions for me - first to get all my hopes up and then DASHED by her comment, and all sorts of red flags started flapping in the breeze. 

"There may be a mistake in the VIN number that I originally recorded for the bike," I said rather plaintively. " I have the appropriate paperwork filled out to get that fixed." I could feel my pulse beginning to quicken - like being the passenger in a car that you know is going Way Too Fast for that curve that's coming up...

"I have a photo of the VIN that I took," I stammered. "It's on my phone." 

"Can we see that...?" Of Course! 

She looked at the pic I had, which truth be told was rather smudgy and you couldn't really make out specifically the whole number - I could see it plainly enough, but my opinion didn't matter here.

She ran the corrected VIN, but that didn't come up either. By this time, I could see the writing on the wall, and it didn't look good...neither of the VINs were connected to the bike I wanted to register, first because the original mistaken VIN wasn't in the system, and secondly because I HADN'T RUN THE VSA 40 WITH THE RIGHT VIN NUMBER!!

She swept my precious motorcycle plates off the counter, stashing then somewhere off to her left, and dropped the bomb I knew was coming: "You'll have to re-do the VIN search again - everything on the original paperwork has to match." 

"So I'll have to spend another forty dollars because you can't fix ONE letter"??

"Yes, I'm afraid so..." 

"Bu that's going to take another SIX WEEKS," I stammered, (not to mention another forty bucks! I thought) trying to keep my voice at a conversational level lest I attract the attention of the bored-looking armed security guard.

"I'm sorry" she said smugly through her Plexiglas safety net "but all the paperwork has to match." 

There was nothing I could do. She had the upper hand - she knew it, I knew it - and That Was IT. 

I gathered all my FUCKING PAPERWORK up and slunk out the door, not half pissed at myself. Oh, I'll make goddamned SURE I have a nice clear pic of the VIN number THIS TIME! I groused...I got back home (the trip seemed to take forever) and immediately went out to the garage and dragged the poor little VTR out into the sunshine where the sun shone directly down onto the ID plate for the bike, which was obscured by rust - damn near all of it...but NOT FOR LONG!!

I pulled out the sandpaper and steel wool and scrubbed that damn thing down damn near to the bare metal - and some of it was stamped so faintly I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get a decent picture of it, but I finally did:

I went back into the house On a Mission - logged into the DMV website, found the AVP Process pages AGAIN, filled them out - AGAIN! And paid my forty dollars - AGAIN! making GODDAMNED SURE I had the right VIN number on that goddamned piece of paper "so everything would match!"