This almost drove me crazy

Posted in Random Musings on 24. Aug, 2011

Hi all,

When you go ex-pat, you think about the challenges you will face living abroad.

You don’t really give much thought to the problems you may have when you return.

I’m currently in the US (and soooo ready to get back to Brazil). I’m here to help my mother, who recently retired, move from Texas to Louisiana. (Again, insert educational system / firearms / inbreeding joke HERE.)

Because her new home is several hours from her current one, Mom would like me to drive her car over to Louisiana.

This is how the odyssey began.

You see, I last lived in Florida, but my Florida driver’s license expired. Quite some time ago. So I’m not (until today; read on) legally licensed to drive anywhere.

How did that happen? Well, although I suppose I could have renewed my Florida license online, at the time it was up for renewal I had no Florida address, and they don’t mail Florida licenses to places like Texas or Brazil.

These are the things that you can overlook when going ex-pat.

No problem! I decided to suck it up and go to the Texas DMV to get a brand new Texas (yee-hah) license. How hard could it be, given the plethora of idiots on the highways?

Let’s see if I can keep this short. First, the line was so ridiculously long when we first went to the DMV that we just turned around and left.

Next time we showed up stupid early to wait in line outside (deja vu – It was like getting my permanent residency for Brazil at Galeao Airport). Although I had my passport, they needed my social security card. I got a social security card when I was about 9 years old. I haven’t seen it since I was maybe 11. I know the number, and had with me a valid US government-issued passport, but was that enough for the good folks at the Texas DMV. No.

Without time to obtain a new social security card (which of course would involve visiting another agency of the government, then waiting), I was able to return with a W-2 bearing my social security number and jump that hurdle.

But this was only the first test, Daniel-san. Wax on, wax off.

After waiting about an hour and a half, I was called. The examiner was surprisingly pleasant. I guess she slipped through the hiring process somehow.

She took my photo, tested my eyes. So far, so good.

She needed my social security number. Again? The woman at triage had already accepted the W-2. But this lady needed to check with her supervisor. Great.

She came back smiling. Yes, the W-2 would be OK.

Then she entered the social security number into the computer.

Computers I have concluded are a mixed blessing. I couldn’t work – or maintain this blog – without one.

But without computers, Texas would never have found that I apparently had a 12-year-old speeding ticket from North Carolina. I had to resolve that problem before I could get a Texas license.

“Are you serious?” I asked? “As a heart attack,” was the reply. Until I resolved the matter with NC, I would not be able to get a driver’s license anywhere in the US.

Big Brother is watching you.

I won’t even get into the circumstances of the ticket, except to say it was a speed trap at the bottom of a hill, and as I was simply passing through NC at the time, I saw no good reason to yield to extortion.

But NC was having the last laugh now. The fine, with an assortment of penalties and every kind of ridiculous fee imaginable tacked on ran to $404.00. That was just what I had to pay Mecklenburg County, the scene of the heinous crime. [Cue up Alice's Restaurant if you have it.] I also had to pay a $50.00 “restoration fee” to the NC DMV – which was actually $85.00, because the NC DMV doesn’t accept the payment directly, but forces you to use a “payment service” which adds a hefty service charge – and is no doubt owned by the governor’s brother.

Are you with me still?

Oh, I almost forgot. This part’s humorous – if it isn’t happening to you personally. I had to go to the bank to get a money order for $404.00 to send to the Mecklenburg County Clerk of Court. I went to Bank of America.

It just so happens that, since Mom is moving from here, and Bank of America (where I had my account) doesn’t operate in Louisiana, I had closed out my account at BofA two days previously. They would not issue me a money order.

I told the teller I understood and would pay the fee.

No, he said, BofA doesn’t issue money orders to non-customers, period.

Fortunately, my mother still had her account there. So my mother had to buy the money order. Now I was humiliated as well as pissed off and defrauded.

I returned to the DMV with my record newly scoured.

Now, because my last license had expired, I had to take not only the eye test, but a written test and the road test. Wonderful.

I waited another 90 minutes to take the written test. I sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair and watched the crowd. They say it takes all kinds. I say “And you see them all at the DMV.”

Finally my number was announced by an electronic voice which seemed somehow to carry the same tone of distain as the live DMV employees. Ah, the advances in technology.

I passed the written test (actually taken on a computer – God knows where those results will appear 12 years from now) and I passed. Great. Let’s do the road test and be done with this whole mess.

Oh, no. “You can’t take the road test today,” I was told. “We must schedule you. How is Thursday at 10:00?”

I had to explain that the whole reason I had begun this process – indeed, the whole reason that I’d come to the US at all – was to help my mother move, and that as the movers would be at Mom’s on Thursday to load up the truck, anything prior to Thursday would certainly be appreciated, Thank you very much, ma’am. After much bowing and scraping, this DMV employee (I’d met them all by now) condescended to to give me a Wednesday morning appointment, admonishing me repeatedly not to be late.

I arrived early on Wednesday, a bit nervous (when did YOU last have to take a road test?) but OK.

Fast forward. The examiner comes out. Car checks out OK. Registration, inspection, insurance are in order. OK, let’s begin.

I did the parallel parking first. No problems. Pulled out. Making small talk to relieve my nervousness as much as anything, I asked, “So how many of these tests do you do in a day?” “Not many. I’m the supervisor.”

This was my luck. I will say only that I did pass, but this was the pickiest woman you could imagine. When she went over what she had deducted points for, I wanted to say, “You’re f***ing kidding me.” But of course I didn’t. I accepted my temporary license, thanked her, and sucked it up.

So my advice to you is: If you go ex-pat, don’t let your driver’s license back in the States lapse.

And if you do, don’t get a new one in Texas.