Luke and I had the not-so-great pleasure of going to the DMV today to finally get new IL drivers licenses and license plates. This may seem a little overdue since we moved a few months ago but can you blame us? It has to be the least favorite thing anyone ever has to do! I swear people who frequent the DMV must be some of the most ignorant people in the world.
Let me just start by saying that it was actually one of the best DMV experiences I have ever had but that still isn't saying much. For starters, we left at 7:30 am to get there before it opened so we wouldn't have to wait for too long. Well, we had semi-wrong directions and managed to go about 10 miles out of the way in rush hour traffic on a Monday morning in Chicago. It took us over an hour to go what was supposed to be about 15 miles (Of course the closet DMV to our house had to be closed for the entire month of August and the second closet is closed on Mondays!) Fortunately we got there just shortly after 8:30 and the line wasn't too long. Next, just because we moved out of Illinois for a few years we had to retake the written test......something I for one have not done since Drivers Ed when I was 15. Good thing we knew about this in advance before getting there so we could at least review a few things...and don't worry we both passed with flying colors :) Then after I got my drivers license printed I realized my address was spelled wrong. The guy at the desk said he couldn't do anything about it and told me I had to go back to the first lady I saw and have her correct it since it was her fault (and not mine). See, in case you didn't know, when you move into a new state you have to provide 2 pieces of mail with your address on it so you can establish Illinois residency and when I gave her the mail the first time around the address was clearly written on my mail but she still managed to get it wrong. When I said something about that she actually said "Oh, I guess I should have paid more attention...the reason I spelled Santa Fe (which is the street I live on) like Sante Fe is because that is how the city Santa Fe, New Mexico is spelled".....No stupid...Santa is spelled with an "A" NOT an "E"! Luckily they let me cut in line and get a new and corrected license printed. Last but not least, we were hoping to take care of our license plates at the same visit, but of course, they didn't provide that service at that location. We did get the forms however and it appears we can just mail that part it. As long as it doesn't mean another trip to the DMV.......I don't think I could take that for another few years at least!
Moral of the story? Make sure you are prepared and even when you are just remember "what can go wrong WILL go wrong when going to the DMV!
