May, 2005:

So there I was, coming out of the grocery store one morning and there was this scratch, these scratches. These gouges.

The paint has been completely scraped off in places.

I can’t figure out what scraped up against my car and around the back bumper. Without actually denting my car.

Any ideas?

During the next few weeks, she spent her copious free time studying the online Driver Handbook, using the online tutorial, and practicing the online test exams. This week, a letter arrives in the mail from the DMV and it went a little something like this:

DMV Renewal Letter
Please make an appointment with the DMV to get finger-printed, vision-tested and photo-snapped for $25.

No mention of a written test.

So after a night’s dreaming of flunking said test, she called the DMV to clarify what she could do to avoid taking it since she’d already met the requirements on the renewal letter. She was told to make an appointment and bring everything and she would not have to take the test. And do you suppose she could make an appointment right then and there? No, that was another online task.

In two weeks (Appointment #2), she will have trouble finding a parking space at the DMV (again) so she can walk in (again) and demonstrate to them something that should be fairly evident in their computer system already. Apparently they need hard-copy proof. Proof that was printed by them and given to me. I have to give this to them. With an appointment.

As our heroine is always looking at the bright side of life (especially after seeing Spamalot on Broadway), she can feel good knowing that, if nothing else, she has learned the following:

A few weeks ago my mortgage company sent me a notice that they had no proof of my home owner’s insurance coverage and to fax them this proof right away. I did the very next day. And I called to confirm that they had received it and got something like “Well, it’s not in the system yet, can you call back tomorrow?”, after which I promptly forgot about it.

This week I receive a “Notice of Temporary Insurance” and “Our records show that we have not received blah blah blah…”. They secured temporary insurance for me and if I don’t show them proof of insurance, then some full year policy will kick in at the low, low rate of only $8,222.00 per year.

So I had to get off my ass and call them and punch in account numbers and social security numbers followed by pound signs and sit on hold and get a real person and repeat all the information that I already I punched in so that I could hear the cheerful person on the other side of the line say “Oh yes, you can disregard that letter, we received it already.”

Let me tell you a little about him, although oddly, I didn’t catch his name. He proceeded to bend the ear of a sucker across the aisle from him.
1. He lives in Sacramento.
2. He has spent the last week in Singapore.
3. He had a 10 hour layover in Japan.
4. He was traveling for a courier company, so he had to pack light. By the way, this is a legitimate company.
5. His parents live in Eureka.
6. He’d been traveling since 7am yesterday.
[His right hand starts to fiddle around in his right front pocket. I don’t know if he was looking for a photo album to share or what, but he took far too long before giving up.]
7. This courier company was a legitimate company. You get a discounted airfare. He went to Singapore for about $400.
[By now I’ve plugged in my ear plugs, but they don’t seem to be working. I can still hear him clear as a bell.]

This guy has a case of itchy feet and removes his shoes to scratch like crazy in various creative ways: using his hands, his feet, the hardware on the floor, whatever he could get his feet on.

My royal decree would require that his hat display: I’M SCREAMING FOR ATTENTION!

He fidgets, and moves around, and sighs heavily with groans so that somebody “Please for the love of God!” talk to him.

I made sure he saw me put in my earplugs so he didn’t try speaking directly to me. I waited for the aroma of his stinky feet to hit me, but I guess the Stinky Feet gods were with me, or not with me, or whatever.

As we sped up for take off, my cheerful rotund rowmate announced “We are moving! We are moving!” Peripherally, I see him cross himself. Oh good, a religous man. I assume he’s dying to talk to me as he leans way over to see out the window, and I realize it’s a good thing I’m at the window and he’s at the aisle rather than the opposite because he can accost several other people and continue to leave me alone.

My arch nemesis continues to fidget, he seems in anticipation of the drink order taker. As soon as she arrives, he says “I’m allergic to alcohol, it makes me break out in handcuffs.” I think he said handcuffs, but would that have been funny if someone else said it? Anyway, I didn’t see the reaction of the flight attendant or the 30 or so passengers around us that surely heard it, but I heard nothing and he did that jokey “oh” realization response that lame bumper-sticker jokesters make and said “I’ll have a cranberry juice.”

The peanuts come and he makes some comment about our in-flight meal and then proclaims “Boy, I’m just full of it today…” Again no response from the prisoners. Followed by “I’m full of something.” A louder silent assent, I’ve never heard.

When will my comrades start throwing tomatoes or bring out the hook? Christ, Wilbur, or whatever your name is, get off the stage!

As we descend into Sacramento, he cranes his neck from the nose-bleed section of the row and says to the window by my right ear “Looks like Mather, though I can’t be sure…….yeah, that is Mather.”

As he fidgeted through another deep and heavy sigh, I tried to envision what kind of fellow wacko would be picking him up from the airport.