Further Adventures in City Living, Pt. Eleventy Seven Thousand

Yeah, so my license plates got stolen last weekend. And because everything about my life is required to result in some sort of saga of ridiculousness and aggravation, I still don’t have any license plates now. The nice part is that no one, including law enforcement, seems to give two shits if I drive my unlicensed vehicle all over town, so I am not too bothered about it either. (It makes sense that they don’t care if I have plates, actually, as they really don’t seem to give even half a shit if someone’s stealing my wheels or fucking a hooker up against the side of my car or popping the passenger side door handle off with a screwdriver or whatever. I presume they have more important things to do. Like direct traffic and… well I’ve really ever only seen them directing traffic, mostly. Anyway.)

So last Friday night I went out to the bar and then to another place to see a friend’s band play, and that was all really fun until my other friend got maced by a third friend. And that’s another story entirely, and I don’t even know if I can do it justice, so I really won’t try. So anyway, I am sure I had license plates when I left that place, and here’s how I know: last year when I had to get new plates my dad sheared off one of the bolts on the back plate holder thing when he was trying to change them, and then w/o asking he strung the license up on one side with wire, so it hung down at a jaunty angle. And every single time I’ve approached my car since then I’ve though “Jesus Christ, I am a hoosier.” and then I’ve gotten in my car and driven away contentedly, because I hope my car looks extremely hoosier, to keep these ghetto motherfuckers from wanting to mess with it. So I remember seeing my dangling plate late Friday night/early Saturday morning when I got in the car to drive my friends back to their cars.

Saturday afternoon I went out to run some errands, and I didn’t notice anything amiss, as it is not my habit to check and make sure all parts of my car are still attached each time I get in it. Except for the wheels, I do check for those now.

When I came out of the grocery store I noticed that my back plate was gone. Hoping they’d at least left me the front one, I walked around to check. No such luck, they apparently wanted the matching pair. So I called the cops from the parking lot (what did we do before cell phones – really?) and made a report. They gave me a report number to use if I got pulled over, and I then I proceeded about my weekend business. I mean, what are you going to do? The license place was closed so all that was left for me was to gleefully run a bunch of red light cameras with my middle finger sticking out the window.

So Monday I call the license place, tell them I have had my license plates stolen and that I need new ones – what do I need to bring with me? “The police report.” They say. “I have the report number,” sez I, “Is that good enough?” “No, not at all, we need the actual report.” is their reply. So fine. I call the city and ask them how do I get this police report? I mean, they must have a simple, efficient system in place to deal with this, as I’d imagine it’s a pretty frequent occurrence here – right? Oh but no. To get the report I have to go downtown. Now, driving downtown in St. Louis during the daytime, or anytime, is a bunch of bullshit. There’s never going to be anywhere to park, you’re gonna get lost walking around, the people are sure to be assholes, the place is going to smell bad, there are going to be weird homeless guys commenting about your hair, it’s all going to suck. I don’t want to go downtown. So I ask, can’t they mail me the report? Well sure they can – once I send them a money order for $6.00. And no, she adds before I can ask, they will not fax or email the report. Of course not. I mean, as a victim of crime things should not be easy or convenient for me.

I should be dumbfounded by this stupidity, but I am not. Everything in this city  is arranged to create the most awkward situation possible for everyone except city workers. You have no idea how I loathe them. So now I am looking at driving downtown and paying $6 plus parking fees and whatever else they dream up to charge me, or driving around the corner from work and paying $23. Hrm… I had to stew on that for a few days while I curse the brain dead cock-smoking fucktard who stole my motherfucking plates in the first place. Get a job, you piece of shit. Plus it’s  been cold as tits here recently, and I have not been in the mood to be out and about. So I just let it go a few days, thinking maybe the plates would grow back or the plate fairy would pay me a visit or something. But no such luck. So yesterday at lunch I finally knuckled down and headed to the license office to get my new plates, determined to just pay the $23 and be done with it. As I sat in the license office waiting I became even more glad that I didn’t bother with the report, as I see that even with the report you have to bring a notarized something or other, pay a special fee, pay another special re-licensing fee (per plate!) and then another fee for using a debit or credit card. Nice. I am sure that would have added up to $22.50 or something, so no point in bothering with the paperwork for my “free” replacement plates.

BUT BUT BUT… when it’s finally my turn, the disaffected lady behind the counter tells me that I can’t even get the license because instead of my and my dad’s names being on the title, like I thought, it was my dad’s name on the title with a transfer on death order to my name. What the heck? I knew they had done that for his car, put me on the title with a transfer when he died, but I could have sworn that we were joint title-holders for my car. Wish I would have known all this when I was paying for that car. But whatever. Of course it’s not going to work, they won’t let me get the new plates without my dad there, and now I have to call my parents like a motherfucking moron. “Hey Mom and Dad, I know I am a grown woman, but I seemingly cannot manage my world, can you do it for me?” Which they, of course, immediately did. They had the whole thing done and dusted in two hours, and the plates are now waiting for me at their house. I will go get them this weekend and have the guys at work put them on in some non-stealable way next week, so it looks like it’s another non-drinking weekend for me. I like to push my luck pretty far, but driving around with any alcohol at all in my system when I am (or at least should be) more likely to get pulled over than normal is just more than I want to mess with. Ah well, it’s probably a nice break for my liver anyway.

Thus endeth the saga of the stolen license plates, unless there are further adventures in regards to them this weekend. I sincerely hope that there are not.

   Filed under: St. Louis Stuff, crime, people suck | Comments (3)