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In Minnesota, people need to get new license plate tabs once a year. They can do it online for a modest surcharge or in person. The facility to do it in person is about a mile from my house. But I am a world-class procrastinator, so I left it until August 30. Unfortunately, because I had work-related errands on August 30, by the time I got to the facility it was too late to get a number.
On August 31 (yesterday), I went to the Minnesota State Fair to demonstrate spinning in the morning and didn't come home until evening.
Today, I woke up to a nastygram from the state of Minnesota notifying me that I was out of compliance and could not legally drive that car (but could apply online for the tabs). It used to be that you could drive safely with expired tabs until the fifteenth of the next month, but no longer. Scofflaw that I am, I drove to the facility with my expired tabs and got number 75. I waited an hour and it had only got to 70. I had to go home for a company meeting, so I got a new number (98) and gave my number 75 to a guy in line.
I went home and found that the meeting was canceled.
I went back to the facility and waited another half hour for 98 to come up. When the number was called, the agent asked me for my driver's license to start the process. It wasn't in my pocket. It wasn't in any of my pockets; I checked them all. She gave me a return tag so I wouldn't have to wait in line again and I went home to look for my license.
Luckily, the license was in my gym pants pocket and not lost at the fair as I had feared. I have no idea what it was doing there. I went back to the facility for the third time, and this time I got my tabs and applied them to my car, having checked very carefully that it was indeed my car. (The failure mode some years ago was when I applied those tabs to the wrong black Honda Accord.)
None of this was anyone's fault but my own; by the time I went back the third time, I had gone past aggravation into finding the whole thing funny.
Maybe this will be a lesson to me for next year to be more timely, but the odds don't favor it.
On August 31 (yesterday), I went to the Minnesota State Fair to demonstrate spinning in the morning and didn't come home until evening.
Today, I woke up to a nastygram from the state of Minnesota notifying me that I was out of compliance and could not legally drive that car (but could apply online for the tabs). It used to be that you could drive safely with expired tabs until the fifteenth of the next month, but no longer. Scofflaw that I am, I drove to the facility with my expired tabs and got number 75. I waited an hour and it had only got to 70. I had to go home for a company meeting, so I got a new number (98) and gave my number 75 to a guy in line.
I went home and found that the meeting was canceled.
I went back to the facility and waited another half hour for 98 to come up. When the number was called, the agent asked me for my driver's license to start the process. It wasn't in my pocket. It wasn't in any of my pockets; I checked them all. She gave me a return tag so I wouldn't have to wait in line again and I went home to look for my license.
Luckily, the license was in my gym pants pocket and not lost at the fair as I had feared. I have no idea what it was doing there. I went back to the facility for the third time, and this time I got my tabs and applied them to my car, having checked very carefully that it was indeed my car. (The failure mode some years ago was when I applied those tabs to the wrong black Honda Accord.)
None of this was anyone's fault but my own; by the time I went back the third time, I had gone past aggravation into finding the whole thing funny.
Maybe this will be a lesson to me for next year to be more timely, but the odds don't favor it.
