The Most Mondayest Monday Yet

So my driver’s license expired on my birthday, and I forgot about it because they sent me a reminder card in early December, which is far ahead of my birthday, and I treated it like a license plate renewal: You don’t want to do it months in advance, otherwise you’re early and losing some value.

But I remembered last Wednesday when I saw a headline in the newspaper that said REAL-ID compliant licenses would become available today, Monday, March 25. So I thought I would wait until today to renew.

So I got my beautiful wife to act as my chaffeur for the weekend, and this morning, I piled the boys into my the truck I just bought to take them to school and to stop by the license office on the way home.

As we started up a hill about a half mile from our place on the two-lane farm road, the truck lost power and would no longer go forward. I tried to power it up to the next turn-off, but no dice. The road does not have a shoulder; it has ditches. So I called my beautiful wife to bring the old, high-mileage SUV to take the boys to school, and I waited for a tow truck. While blocking traffic. Even with my flashers on, cars pulled up behind me and honked until I opened the hood in the universal symbol of This truck is going nowhere under its own power. A couple of people offered to help, which was nice. A young lady offered to help me push the full size SUV up the hill to the next turn off, which I thought was overly optimistic.

The guy at the garage was rubbing his hands together on the inside when he said it sounded like the timing belt. Which can cause significant damage to the engine if it breaks while the vehicle is running. Frankly, I’m hoping for less than half the cost of the vehicle at this point. It’s under warranty, hopefully, but we’ll see.

So eventually, I made it to the license office and found a great line of people getting their new REAL-ID licenses. With only one person processing driver’s license renewals. Which are taking about ten minutes per person because of the additional paperwork required. Which I did not bring because my instructions card from December covered a regular driver’s license, not the REAL-ID compliant one which, of course, requires more than the old driver’s license and a postcard.

So my truck broke down on the way to the DMV, where I couldn’t get the license I’d hoped for when I finally got there.

But everyone’s been very nice, and when they’ve said, “How are you?” I’ve responded “So far, so good,” and when they’ve said “Have a nice day,” I’ve said, “Thanks.”