Friday, May 29, 2009

The whole state's just one big (punch)line.



True Story:
I went to the DMV yesterday. I guess when people leave New Jersey, they don't usually come back, so there was a lot of confusion over which forms I needed to fill out and which documents I needed. Was I renewing my registration? Or maybe this would be considered a brand new registration? And by their account, I was missing 3 or 4 documents required to get everything done. Since I've just moved back to Jersey, I needed to redo pretty much EVERYTHING: driver's license, car registration and plates, car inspection. At one point, they also told me I'd have to retake the driver's written test. Which is about when I really lost it.

I decided then that the best way to handle the situation was to simply act like I didn't need any of those documents or special procedures. I figured, if they didn't know the appropriate work flow to give me what I needed, then the only thing standing between me and my fully licensed glory was them. Why not simply pretend that I knew what they were supposed to do and guide them accordingly? Surprisingly, that actually worked.

A quick aside about the NJ DMV. It takes roughly 3 times as long to go through there as it did in California. California was all about those deli-counter number tags. They assigned you a letter and a number and when you were called, they took care of all your stuff at once. In New Jersey, they are ALL about the assembly line approach. First the reception area. Then the document checkers. Then the counter, the waiting room, the counter again. And if you're really lucky, that's when you get to leave. If you came to the DMV for more than one thing, you need to start over again.

If the lines were short, it wouldn't be an issue. But due to budget cuts and the miserable economy, my county (which contains Newark) halved the number of DMVs from 4 to 2. Additionally, one of the remaining DMVs only does licenses, not registrations or inspections. Which means, 800k people are attempting to use this one DMV per year. Tell me that's not an infrastructure problem of the highest magnitude.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Something Fishy's Goin' On

When I first contemplated moving back to New Jersey, I forgot to account for a few things I had acquired since I had moved out to CA. Most notably, my fish, Leonard Nimoy, and what seemed to be about 40 tons of paper.


I'm not the kind of person to go buying pets and then abandoning them. the purchase of an animal is a special contract that says you're taking responsibility for their life and welfare. Even if it is something as mundane as a blue Betta.

Figuring out a way to transport my fish was a bit of a conundrum. There was no way he was going to fit into those little shampoo bottles with their narrow necks. No, what I needed were spice jars. I was sure I'd seen jars large enough to hold Leonard, but small enough to get through airport security. More importantly, I remembered where I had seen them: the Ace Hardware store in El Ceritto had sold me several spice jars for my spice collection while I was in housing for work. I desperately hoped they were 3 oz. or less. Sure enough, the label on the shelf said they were 3 ounces, even though the plastic didn't claim it anywhere.

I made sure that when I packed for the flight, I included the Ace Hardware bag and the receipt which claimed I had purchased three 3oz. plastic bottles. Exactly what I was carrying. It ended up not mattering. Security didn't ask.

Leonard Nimoy and I did raise quite a few eyebrows at the Oakland Security Screening, though. And I'm guessing that at 6am (or any time, for that matter), they probably don't see many people taking their fish on the flight with them. Dogs maybe; cats potentially; fish? most likely not. And a few of the security screeners got a good laugh seeing how freaked out I was when they joked with me that they had run him through the x-ray machine. I just about lost it!

For all the pain and obnoxiousness they put you through when you're rushing to make your flight, at least the screeners still have a little bit of a sense of humor.