TheBanyanTree: I am an idiot...

[Sachet]

Some people say that my "focused" behavior has its good points.

Of course, other people say that I am very anal, OCD-ish and incredibly 
stubborn and as bullheaded as a mule.

Ok....

Remember that we moved to North Carolina in the month of November. 
(2004) My birthday happens to be in November. When we lived in Florida 
(the land of perpetual hurricanes) our vehicle registration and license 
plate (tag) sticker renewal dates were efficiently and oh-so-helpfully 
coordinated with our birthday. Easy to remember, no hassles, kinda sucky 
to have to pay a large-ish chunk of change around your birthday, but 
such is life and county fees. They donna care.

So....

Two of the three family cars are registered in my name. The Nissan, 
since it used to be mine, until Chelsea took over the payments. We are 
giving her a very nice deal and she has a great dependable car for a low 
monthly payment, but it's still registered in my name. The Vue, which we 
bought last April is mine (All mine, mine, mine! First ever vehicle that 
I can say that about. Hence, the possessive excitement) and therefore 
also registered in my name. So when the fees came due in November for 
two of the cars, I assumed that since it was NOVEMBER, and MY birthday, 
that the shiny new silver and orange tag stickers and crisp new 
registration cards were for my Vue and Chelsea's Nissan. Her card said 
Nissan, 4 door and her tag & VIN numbers. "Mine" said Saturn, 4 door and 
the tag number and VIN numbers. [The third car is also a 4 door Saturn.]

Now....

Let me ask you. Do you have both your tag *and* VIN numbers 
memorized?????????

I kinda sorta had the tag number memorized, but it's a hazy thing 
because I also have the other two car tags floating around in my head 
and since I never need mine specifically, I don't concern myself with 
it. And you can forget the VIN's! I have 3 other people's social 
security numbers and so many other numbers stockpiled in my brain, it's 
wonder I can spit any of them out in anything close to the proper order. 
Therefore, it made perfect and complete sense to me that the shiny 
metallic orange and silver sticker and the crisp new registration card 
were mine. Which is why I took great & precise care to clean my license 
plate with alcohol before sticking the adorable little thing in its 
proper place in the upper right hand corner, right on top of the old 
sticker. I did NOT want it coming loose and as an extra precaution I 
even ran my key across it in a criss-cross pattern so that if a thief 
tried to peel it off and reuse it, it would end up coming off in pieces 
and thereby be useless to them. (I read about that nifty trick years ago.)

Well...

My husband called me from work today. Seems he got pulled over by a 
state trooper. Because his tag sticker has expired. He's puzzled and 
tells the officer that that doesn't make sense, since his birthday is 
not until July. And that he hasn't received any renewal info. The very 
nice officer explains that North Carolina does not coordinate tag and 
registration renewal dates by birthday. Instead, it's according to when 
you purchased the vehicle or when you initially registered it with the 
state. He very helpfully goes back to his police car to check the plates 
and returns to tell my husband that he is current, except for the tag 
sticker being too old. Because, the county records show that he paid for 
his tag and registration renewal in November. The officer suggests he 
might have lost or misplaced the registration card and sticker, since 
they were mailed out and very kindly only issues him a warning.

When he calls and tells me this and asks if he'd received any renewal 
info I blithely tell him that nope, I only got info for my car and 
Chelsea's and promptly took care of them both in November. After a lot 
of questioning back and forth, I also gently reminded him that his car 
is his car and since I already take care of two of the cars that he will 
need to call the DMV tomorrow and find out what went wrong. But to 
placate him and to puzzle out the why of it, I walk out to Chelsea's car 
and check her license plate and sticker. Did ya know that they have 
matching numbers on them? I didn't.

So I walk over to my car and check the license plate and sticker. Well, 
huh, whaddya know, they don't match. Imagine that! Jim asked me to read 
off the number and guess what??? It's HIS license plate number on the 
sticker! And sure enough when I look in the glove box it's his 
registration card sitting safely there. Which would explain why he 
couldn't find it when the nice officer asked to see it.

Ok, so then I have to search all over my glove box to try and find my 
actual registration card. Can't find it! Darn, darn, darn!

I went online and discover that for a mere $15 I can order a replacement 
registration card. And for another $15 I can order a new sticker. Online 
even. Only I need to enter my tag number (no problem, as I have that) 
and my title number, which the site helpfully points out is located on 
the MISSING registration card. Why do they DO that?!? If you need a 
replacement, then you aren't going to have that number! Trust me, it's 
not on ANY of the bank papers, insurance papers or other MANY pieces of 
paper associated with the purchase of the car that I desperately 
searched through. Only other alternative is to drive to Walnut Cove on 
Friday. Last time we drove there, the answering machine said they were 
open, the website said they were open, but when we arrived there was a 
sign on the front door saying they would be gone for another week. I 
really, really didn't want to drive all the way to Walnut Cove tomorrow. 
Especially with their track record.

But, this has to be taken care of ASAP, because Jim has the warning 
ticket and once I remove his sticker off my my license plate I 
discovered that his and my old one are now stuck together so hard that 
they won't come part. Except of course in pieces, because you know I had 
to do that theft prevention thing. So this means that there will be a 
VERY obvious bare corner on my license plate. Somehow, I figure that the 
chances of that going unnoticed until April (when we now know is when I 
will receive my renewal info) are between slim and none. But I can 
salvage his sticker. I  know this because I used a razor scraper to 
remove it and then I had to put it back on to go pick up Zach.

And as I am sitting waiting for Zach to get in the car, I remember that 
my instruction manual is laying in my back seat to remind me to stop and 
pick up the new air filter that I need. Normally all of my vehicle 
papers are in a nice neat folder in my glove box. But for some freaky 
and fortuitous reason when I opened the manual, there I found my actual 
registration! Ooo-rah! (Marine style yell, courtesy of Pam. <g>)

So that got me to thinking. I have Jim's registration and I can attach 
his tag sticker, so he's squared away all nice and legal. I now have my 
registration, but I still need my tag sticker. I figure I don't have all 
that much to lose if I try, (just one more time) to separate the two 
stickers. Because I reason, that if they start to come apart, I will 
sacrifice mine since it's due to be renewed in April anyway and maybe 
the county office will just let me renew early. If not, then I will be 
out $15 for a new sticker.

I plan it all out on the drive home. Once we get home I assemble my 
tools & supplies on the kitchen counter after once again removing my 
license plate and carefully scraping off the sticker(s). I laid out two 
brand new razor blades, clear packing tape, address labels, permanent 
markers, scissors, gel pens, and the stupid stuck together stickers.

After carefully inserting the razor blade in between the two stickers on 
one corner I made slow progress. I was so excited that they were peeling 
apart!! Until one of the corners broke off. Dang, that crisscrossing 
with the key really does work! Although at that moment, I was indeed 
sorry to be proving that theory correct. Ok, so one little corner won't 
matter. I kept working...with the cat rubbing against my legs and then 
Cloud, the perpetual puppy, coming in to chase the cat. Then Chelsea 
comes in to watch. I yelled (politely) for everyone to get outta the 
kitchen because they were making me so nervous and I really didn't want 
to add a visit to the ER to the evening. (Trying to explain to the ER 
staff exactly why I had sliced up my fingers was not high on my list of 
preferred things to do.)

Slowly, oh-so-slowly the stickers kept separating. Ok, so I ended up 
with one sticker in 4 pieces and the other in 5 pieces, but I looked 
upon them as teeny-tiny jigsaw puzzles to reassemble. Giving up at this 
point was NOT an option. The first step in the process of reassembling 
your license plate sticker is to precisely place all of the pieces (even 
the slivers) onto a big address label, because you have pretty much 
destroyed its original adhesive abilities and you also need something to 
give it substance. Plus, the white background of the label lends itself 
to coloring in missing places. Lemme tell you how VERY pleased I was to 
find the exact shade of reddish orange marker in my mandala marker 
collection! A few touch-ups to the edges and to the slightly distorted 
NC and it looks pretty darn good. Thankfully, the really important part; 
you know, those numbers that have to match the actual license 
plate?...well, thankfully they were not damaged. One of the tears went 
cleanly around them. I thought that was pretty cool. I didn't have a 
silver marker that would match just right, but I did luck out and found 
my silver gel pen for filling in the shape of the state and for the 
border around the oh-so-important numbers. I added a clear protective 
cover of packing tape and then carefully cut it out to match its 
original shape. Voila!

I stuck it back on my license plate and placed the whole thing back in 
its black frame and proudly screwed it back onto my vehicle. You have to 
bend over and look really close to see that it's not "quite" perfect. 
And ya know, some people really mangle theirs anyway when sticking them 
on. So it's not like every single car with a sticker has a perfect one. 
As a precaution I am printing out this story and placing it in my glove 
box, just in case I get stopped by a police officer. I want him to know 
that it was a simple mistake and that we are paid up and legally 
registered. I have my registration card. So what if my sticker is not 
perfect? It only has to last me a couple of more months. :-D


...Sachet