Why the Utah DMV is CRAZY AWESOME

They are so awesome that really does need all caps.

I had to get my car registered on Wednesday.  I was dreading it because the last time I went to the DMV in California it took me 3 hours.  One hour waiting outside and another 2 inside.

So I wasn't looking forward to another DMV experience.  This is how it went.


I walked right in.  No line outside.  This lady handed me a slip of paper with #529 on it.  I walked into the room.  The loudspeaker said, "Number 528 at window 7.  Number 529 at window 1."  I stood there in shock for a second and then headed over to window #1.  The lady at the window was smiling.  I handed over all my paperwork.  She typed some stuff into her computer.  She held up 2 sets of license plates and asked me which design I wanted.  She told me it was $79 and I swiped my card.  I signed for the registration and title.  She handed me the plates.  I left.

This all took maybe 5 minutes.  I was absolutely giddy walking out to my car carrying my new license plates.  The people I passed probably thought I was crazy because I had a huge Joker-esque smile on my face, but I was so amazed.  The DMV lady was cheerful and nice.  That's definitely a first for me.  And they just handed me my plates.  I expected to have to wait several weeks for them to come by mail.  And it was only $79 for registration, title, and the new plates.  My California registration was $93 by itself.  And who ever heard of no wait at the DMV?  I asked the lady about it and she said the longest wait she'd ever seen there was 25 minutes.

I'm used to the DMV being this harrowing experience you have to psych yourself up for where people are rude to you and you're lucky if you make it out alive.  I was panicking while driving there because I forgot to bring a book with me and I didn't know what I'd do during the inevitably long wait.  I even considered stopping to buy some reading material.  But instead it was a blissfully simple and pain-free process.

I have to get a Utah drivers license sometime, once I find my birth certificate.  I will be looking forward to seeing if they are as good the second time around.

P.S.  I got lost looking for the building due to some confusion over east and west.  I ended up walking through this huge quilting convention at the Utah County Convention Center.  Room after room of quilts and quilting ladies.  Even the hallways were packed with booths and ladies with sewing machines.  They had this exhibition room you had to pay $3 to enter.  I was seriously tempted but figured I needed to find the DMV since they would be closing in 3 hours and I was worried about the long wait.  If only I'd known.  I should have gone back after the DMV, but I was still on my DMV high and didn't think of it.

The View from my Dumpster

Pretty, right?  That's Utah Lake out there.  Someday they're going to build the rest of the complex out there in that field, but for now it's a great view.

People with cats should . . .

A.  Be banned from the library.
B.  Only be allowed to read library books after going through a decontamination chamber.
C.  Have a separate library from the rest of the human race.
D.  All of the above.

I couldn't figure out why I was sneezing all day yesterday.  Then I found a short black hair in the new library book I had just started.  My first thought, "Oh gross."  My second thought was that this had happened before eight years ago with an Agatha Christie book from the BYU library full of cat hair.  You can tell it scarred me because I still remember it so specifically.

If you google images for "cats" and "books" you will find hundreds of pictures like this.  Obviously cat people think it is cute when their cats infest books.

What is with this shirt?

Why did I buy this shirt?  What would possess me to buy a shirt with a bicycle and butterflies on it?  Why have I been wearing it in public?  I have seen two other women wearing this shirt and they were both 30-40 years older than me.  My only excuse is that I had a coupon that was going to expire and I was really tired when I bought it.  My excuse for wearing it?  That's a little harder to come up with.  I am too poor to just throw it out so I hereby swear that I will never leave the house wearing this shirt again.  Maybe if I wear it inside out I can use it as a pajama shirt.  I need to go on What Not to Wear, but I think I am just slightly not crazy enough for them to pick me.  If you disagree, feel free to nominate me.  I won't hold it against you.

Baby Book Observations

I've been trying to get the paperwork together to register my car in Utah and get a driver's license here.  I ended up digging through a box of stuff my mom collected over the years and then gave me a few years ago in order to try and find my birth certificate.  I made the following observations/discoveries.

A.  My baby book is no longer in this box.  I assume my mom has it somewhere, which I totally understand.  Unfortunately I know that my birth certificate is with my baby book so I guess I won't be keeping my driver's license appointment on Thursday.

B.  Teachers are crazy.  I found a report card of mine from my freshman year where I had all A's and a B+.  Not too shabby.  But 5 of my 6 teachers gave me a #4 in the comment box which equals "ATT/Tardies Affect Work."  Why is that all capitalized?  I don't know.  Was I absent a whole bunch during my freshman year?  I don't remember being sick a lot.  And seriously, how much could these supposed missed classes have been affecting my school work if I just had the one B+ in geometry?  It just seems crazy that 5 of my teachers checked that box.  Maybe it was a computer glitch.

C.  My arch nemesis Mr. Jones really was evil.  In 6th and 7th grade I played percussion for Mr. Jones in the school band.  I hated band primarily because of him.  I even had a nightmare once where he was a Nazi and I was hiding from him.  He would lose his temper randomly and just start screaming at people.

His instrument was also percussion and he was always trying to get me to take it more "seriously."  He had all these dreams of me getting a college scholarship and going on to become a great percussionist.  My own band dreams went no further than junior high.  He was always trying to get me to come to the band room during lunch to get some extra practice or play around on his drum kit.  He also always wanted me to take home this portable xylophone over the weekend to practice more.  I don't think he realized that I had to lug that thing about a mile to get it home and back.  I only took it home one time when I knew it was raining and my mom would pick me up.  Plus when I played it at home it was super loud which I'm sure my family enjoyed.

So anyways, while I was looking through my box of baby stuff I found a certificate from Mr. Jones where he had named me "Challenger Band Outstanding Musician" for my 7th grade year.  I started feeling kind of bad about harboring this negative view of Mr. Jones all these years.  Maybe he wasn't a totally crazy individual who shouldn't have been allowed to interact with children.  Maybe he really was just this frustrated musician who was trying to pass his passion for music on to his students.  Or maybe not.

Later when I was looking at some old report cards I found one from 7th grade where he gave me comments #3 and #6.  Those equal "Achieving Below Ability" and "Assignments Not Completed Regularly/On Time."  Again with the capitalization.  And he only gave me a B.

Now what made him suddenly make me "Outstanding Musician"out of the whole band that very same year if I was such a lazy slacker?  I will tell you.  It was a bribe.  After 7th grade I had so had enough of that crazy teacher.  Unfortunately he made us fill out these forms a couple weeks before school got out where we committed to being in band the next year or not, and I was brave/foolish enough to write that I would be leaving for greener pastures.  He made me stay after class to talk about it and tried to talk me into staying.  Fortunately 7th grade me realized that it would be easier to face his immediate wrath rather than spend another year with him and I stuck to my guns.  And lo and behold, Mr. Jones suddenly got super nice and gave me the award at the end-of-year awards assembly and even an A on my final report card.

So have I been misjudging him all these years?  That certificate almost tricked 31-year-old me, but luckily I was a bit more perceptive at age 11 and managed to escape Mr. Jones.

D.  I don't have anyone to share my baby box with.  This one is a "woe is me/pity party" one so feel free to skip.  Whenever I looked at this stuff before (old report cards and awards, funny stories I wrote, pictures of me growing up, etc.), I thought about how fun it would be to show this stuff to my kids someday, and then tonight it hit me that I don't have anyone to show my box to and I probably never will. And I know it's totally my fault, but it still sucks.

Blanket #7

I finished Ella's blanket just in time for her birthday.  I think it was my fastest one yet.  I drove down with Heather and her family that week so we all got to go to Ella's birthday party.  It was nice to be able to see Ella get her blanket in person.  Now I just need to finish Emily's unless someone has another kid soon.