street legal

The brakes in Robert's car were going, and I told him we could get along with just one car if he had the repairs done on a day when I was going to work. Unfortunately, the first available appointment was for today, one of my days off, when I thought I'd need my car. So Robert decided to rent a car to get himself to work.

This morning, he left the house fairly early to drop the car off. A while later, there was some kerfuffle in the house, and there was Robert, with no rental car, and not on his way to work after all. Turns out that when he went to rent the car, they took one look at his license and told him it had expired. Today turned out to be a "work from home" day.

So, this afternoon, I drove Robert to the nearest Registry of Motor Vehicles (which we affectionately call "the Registry" or the RMV). Going there has been a painful experience in the past. The RMV workers are known for their inefficiencies, for making you stand in line for 45 minutes only to tell you that you're in the wrong line and that you need to start all over.

This time was a little different. You walk in and stand in one line to speak to a "greeter". You are then assigned a number and told the approximate wait time. You sit on uncomfortable benches (at least there's a place to sit) until about three or four times the expected time has passed. When your number is called, you speak to the clerk. It's fairly efficient, fairly fair (although we did see someone "expedited" into line ahead of everyone else) and then you get a temporary license.

When it was all over, we celebrated by having lunch at one of our favorite vegetarian Indian restaurants before coming home so that Robert could finish out his work day. And when he picked up his car, he actually got to drive home legally. Phew.