CA DMV

We went to the DMV a couple of weeks ago. Yay for us, right? I was expecting a 2 hour wait (sad, right?) based on the fact that the last time I was at the SS office it was that long. Well....We got there around 10 am. and there were at least 100 people there. doh! so after waiting in a line to state what we wanted to accomplish. They gave us paper work and told us to get back in line. After that we were sent to the longest line, where we waited two hours. Good thing we had plenty of time to study the CA Drivers test booklet....and play risk, temple rush, read a book. After that line we were sent to another line to have our picture taken (wait what? we are getting our pictures before we pass the test, weird they must have a lot of faith in us). I was then promptly sent to another line to get the test. I stood and took my test that I had been nervous for all morning...."this sign means what? When can you turn? (which is actually a trick question since CA has so many wacko signs)" and so on and so forth. I complete the test and wait in line to have it graded. Did I mention that there was only one person working the test desk...so all 100 + people had to go through just her to get their test and then to have it corrected right there. 

The test lady calls me forward and starts going through my test and with her red pen she started making marks on my paper. I did not know how many I could miss without failing. but I knew my fate when at the very bottom of the test she marked how many wrong and wrote an F and paused. ...."F, F? I could not have just failed, those were ridiculous questions? anyone that can read english should have passed that test!!" well all of these thoughts were raging through my head when I finally gasped out, "F? I failed?"  the test lady briefly looked at me and said, "mam what're you talkin' about? You miss six and you fail, you only missed two." Well I passed with flying colors, even though she wrote a big F on my paper.....must mean something else, like Fantastically well done? 

 The test lady handed me my test and in my exhausted and overwhelmed state I found a seat to wait for seth to get done with his test even though I felt like yelling "if I have to stay one more minute in this place I'm going to go bonkers!" Now interesting situation. I noticed that at the DMV, seth and I were two of the 20 Caucasians there, everyone else seemed to speak another language. One of the individuals who was from  Turkey (i think) came up to me. I had noticed her when I was standing in line to get my test corrected while her boyfriend was standing in the line to get the test. She said, "you just took the test?" I responded in the affirmative and then she said "could I see the test?" I probably should have said "oh, what for" to gauge her intentions instead I yelled NO WAY. As you can see I had gone bonkers by then. I had sat in line all morning (it was about 1pm ) to have somebody ask if they could see the test...which by the way had the answers marked on it. 

Oh but it doesn't end there Muh haha hahah.. Seth finishes up his test and comes to me and says we need to do a few things for our car registration. I inhaled slowly through my nose. okay, I can do this. We just need to get a quick smog inspection, which I had thought we might have to do anyway. I called Mary, an angel of a sister, and asked if she could watch walter for another hour. If I would have had to take Walter with me on this awesome adventure, I would have cried. 

We finished the smog inspection and headed back to the DMV. By this point we had paid money just to have an application for the car registration and then we just paid money to be tested and get a certificate. So we head back and pull our car to the exterior car check (dont worry we had to wait in line there too). We finished that and Seth was so kind to send me off to mary's to grab something to eat and the plan was to pick him up and be done for the day. BUT WAIT, it gets better. Seth  texts me and says "im in line AGAIN"....twenty min later he texts and says "almost to the front of the line, do you want to come pick me up?" Then twenty more min later he calls around two thirty and says that we still did not have all of the information. that was at about 2 thirty, the DMV closes at 5pm. Seth said that we needed to hurry and find a place that is a certified brake and light check place. 

As we were looking for said place, Seth told me the story of what happened in the DMV. He finally got the front of the express line they put him in because he said he had already waited in line all morning. The lady at the front said, "oh, this is not getting processed today, you do not have all of the required paper work." and Seth is just astonished! after all of our work, someone at the DMV had forgotten to mention that we needed one additional piece of paperwork. Had it been mentioned earlier we could have quickly got it done when we were out getting the smog test. But here it was 2:30 and the lady at the counter was sure that we could not get it done before closing time.

At this point Seth was so frustrated! I would have cried if i was there. He said "look, I cannot comeback another time and get this done. I start work next week and will never have a weekday to come in. I have to get this done because I am the only one on the title. My wife cannot come in because she was recently in the ER and cannot get this done and sit in line again with our 17 month old baby boy." The lady seemed to listen to our concerns and gave us an address to get the work done and then to hurry back and come straight to her without waiting in line. 

So here we were driving around looking for this place she had referred...yup didn't find it. so we stopped at two or three other places and one place referred us to the last place we ended up going. So I called ahead and asked in the kindest voice I could if they could help us out. The owner said if you can get here in five minutes we will try but there is no way it will be done before five. Well they started the work at 3:55. Seth and I sat anxiously in their customer waiting area...which were two chairs in the parking lot.

 Seth was so frustrated and hungry and probably frustrated even more because he was hungry. I told him to go across the street and get something to eat. 20 minutes went by and he came back and ate a sandwich as we talked and tried to laugh about our predicament. "it would be a miracle if we could get all of this done today" we both thought. Well at 4:40 the car was pulled back into the parking lot so Seth ran into the office and filled out the last of the paperwork, get our certificate and pay for the inspection. Boy did it seem to take forever to get that done. By the time we got in the car we had about fifteen minutes to get to the DMV. We made it there with five minutes to spare, seth jumped out of the car and ran inside. I sat outside in the car anxiously for ten minutes before seth texted me saying he was just waiting to be helped right after the guy she was currently helping. The DMV had closed their doors, but this meant that seth could get it all done, assuming we really did have all the necessary paperwork. Ten more minutes passed and he walked to the car with a huge grin. We had done it! It took from 10 am to a little past 5 pm to get everything done but we did it! 

I would never wish a DMV visit on anyone. We were so blessed to get things done in the nick of time. On the car trip back to mary's to get Walter, Seth said that as the lady was putting the final paperwork through she was reflecting on our earlier visit where she had told seth that he was missing paperwork. She said that sometimes she notices that stuff but that she doesn't say or do anything about it, and then later the customer would get a letter that says they would need to provide that additional information. BUT, when she saw that we were missing the last certificate she somehow knew she had to say something. Now you could judge her and say, "hello! you should ALWAYS tell the people when they are missing something." I would agree with you, but no one is perfect so I am just so grateful that she did. I am sure that our heavenly father watched out for us not once but several times that day.