Thursday, January 28, 2010

NO LONGER TEMPORARY

We were awakened this morning by a call from our boat loan broker. My driver's license was expired (yep, January 1), and the bank wouldn't accept it as a valid ID. As the morning progressed, we learned they would accept neither a passport nor a birth certificate in its place. Are these the same banks of recent years that were handing out loans like cheese cubes on toothpicks? ARGH.

Assuming the DMV would require proof of residence, I went online to print out a recent utility bill but couldn't remember the password. With a temporary password obtained by spouting Chip's mother's maiden name, I logged in to find our wine shop account, not residence. AAAHH. I tried another logon but couldn't remember that password either. Long minutes later, using my mother's maiden name, I successfully logged in with yet another temporary password to find I couldn't open the file type that contained the bill.

DMV phone line was perpetually busy.

So I showed up, with nothing but an expired license, signed up and waited.

After failing half the road sign questions and blindly guessing on half the eyesight test, including an incorrect reading of the wrong line, they shrugged it off and moved on to issuing the new license. No proof of residence required, I could have given the address of the Hatteras Lighthouse (or a cave in Afganistan?). Instead I gave them the physical address of that temporary apartment we moved out of last month since that's the address the bank is using. Neither did they care where I had the license mailed as long as it wasn't a business. I chose a friend who, unlike us, has a mailbox and plans to be there for at least 10 days to two weeks until the license arrives.

An hour after arriving (including a quick side trip to get cash since they don't accept credit cards) I left with a piece of paper that proves I am temporarily allowed to drive until my license with a temporary address where I no longer live is delivered to another address where I have never lived.

Well, hallelujah for slack bureaucracy, but while I was handing out suspicious addresses at the DMV, the bank decided to acknowledge my existence (maybe they called my mom? I could have told them her maiden name). They issued the loan.

And so, at 4:29, this 28th day of January, 2010, we officially own a new boat.


**If you are an official-type DMV person, I sincerely apologize for handing out temporary addresses to obtain a temporary license. And, if you don't mind dropping me a line, I could use some advice on what address to give you when I'm living on a boat.

2 comments:

JimB said...

I would worry more about homeland security…

Wes said...

Was just looking at Isabella and then linked over to this post, very cool that you are moving aboard your new boat!