Busted

I went to the acupuncturist as promised. The treatment was remarkably good.  I'd go so far as to say one of the best results ever.  I did miss the woo woo music.  This being Kaiser there was no room in the budget for woo woo, but I did enjoy a nice nap whilst punctured with about 6000 needles and basted by the heat lamp.  I was  also treated with a residual therapy and I'm currently sporting two needle like apparatus in my right ear that I am meant to squeeze in order to jump start some sort of mystical mumbo jumbo that will redirect something or other and keep me pain free.  Awesome.  I go back in a month and am truly looking forward to it.  So there you go.

So a couple summers ago the spouse and I journeyed to the great northwest to visit an event in Onalaska, WA.  We flew in to Portland and rented a fine little car from our buddies at Hertz and began our trek north.  Scarcely had we crossed in to WA when the red flashing lights of a happy little highway cop indicated we should pull over and have a little chit chat with law enforcement.  I was not driving.  Happy Dance.  Steve took it like a man and handed me the ticket and suggested I "handle" it.  Fine.  At least it wasn't me,  hehehehe.  Ok, so about a year later we, no I,  paid the fine and the incident was dismissed from mind and memory. 

Fast forward to last week.  In a missive from the DMV came the notice that Steve, now a felon, was not to  drive as his drivers license had been suspended due to failure to appear and non payment of fines and any other number of sins.  If you know Steve imagine how he took that.  If you don't, well even the dogs scuttled off.  Anyway I tried in vain to find all the paperwork for the "incident" and having no luck in that venture proceeded to try to contact the WA state courts to get the problem sorted out.  For forty-five minutes I redialed the phone number I found online and in the process ate up valuable minutes on my mobile and got the same busy signal.  Eventually I gave up on Washington and turned to the CA DMV system and again with the redial and busy signals for another twenty wasted minutes till I did persevere and actually reach the single live person employed by the department of motor vehicles who is immune to customer outrage and has to speak to the great unwashed who have the fortitude to wade through the morass of phone options which lead you in a circuitous route to  live body person.  This person rarely receives any awards for outstanding customer service.

In the meantime, since I am woman and am capable of the phenomenon of multi tasking, I researched and located the the receipt online from the Clark County municipal and district (WA state) courts indicating the fine had indeed been paid and the case was in fact...closed.  Which is a conundrum since Steve was now on the lam and wanted in two states.  Thank God I wasn't driving.  So I talked to the live body at DMV, she agreed Steve was a wanted man and suggested I fax all the stuff regarding the crime including the print out that stated the fine had been paid, the case #, Docket #, Drivers License #, Violation date, and send same to "CA DMV - pay violations"  and  indicate the fax should go to the attention to "Out Of State Team".  I did that and feeling rather disgruntled dismissed it as a job well done.

Not so quick my pretty.  Yesterday because he works for the county and has nothing better to do, Steve had his friend the cop run his DMV record   So anyway this is the email I received from the wanted man.

Hello my sweet...I had Mark the Cop run my driver's license today and it's still *expletive deleted* up...apparently the dipships in Washington managed to enter the same citation several times, so even though it shows that one citation is paid, it's the other false ones that are holding things up...Mark's going to bring me a copy of what he found on the secret cop database thingy, but the key issue, apparently, is that all the citations are entered under the same docket #...that apparently isn't correct.  I'll scan and email you what he brings me so you have it...meanwhile, would you please be so kind as to see if you can try to reach somebody at the world famous Washington State DMV to try to un *expletive deleted* this?  If we're still members of AAA, they might be able to help...thank you baby, xxxoooxoxoxoxxo

 So back to the phones.  I did finally, after a lifetime of wasted minutes and many games of solitaire, get through to the one person in Washington State who is being punished for something by having to talk to real, irate citizens and began to plead my case, which isn't my case at all, but let's not nit pick shall we?   Well to make a really long, boring story blessedly shorter, Washington State DMV wench refused to talk to me.  Full stop.  Evidently she thought it would be a MUCH better idea to talk to the wanted personally.  And so with some trepidation I bravely left a voice mail message for Steve to take care of it himself, and took myself off to a darkened room with a GIANT bar of chocolate and sucked my thumb for awhile.  Why, I ask, is nothing ever easy?

I'm house sitting for a friend this weekend.  She's taking her offspring up to Tahoe for a ski weekend.  I will be blissfully setting up house in wine country tending to three dogs and like five? horses/ponies.  Nirvana.  Additionally I should be having an outing with a good friend on Saturday with whom I should enjoy a girls night out and celebrate her birthday.  Common sense and decency requires I not blab her age, but as I am older it would scarcely be any fun anyway.  I am looking on this as an opportunity not to dwell on the impending fate of my spouse.  Good luck with that Steve.  God Speed.

Cheers,
Squidgy