So how many trips to the DMV does it take Darcey to get a New York license and plates? Well, four, of course! Plus, naturally, two calls to the insurance company and two trips to a mechanic (not because there was anything wrong with my insurance or my car, just because New York is that full of itself that they like to make you do these sorts of things).

Lessons learned from each stop of my trip:
1. The Saturday before Easter is a holiday in DMV-Land because "they deserve time off too" - never mind the facts that no one else on the rest of the planet gets holiday time off for Easter, or that the DMV already gets plenty more actual holidays off than the rest of us, or that this day isn't even on the nicely-typed list of holidays that they post right on their door.
2. Those regular insurance cards that the insurance companies send out to the rest of the country clearly aren't good enough for a New Yorker.
3. You need a birth certificate to prove you were born. (Never mind what identification the website tells you that you need.) Clearly, when some mediocre state that isn't New York issued you a license, they weren't nearly as careful as New York, so their ID shouldn't be trusted to prove that you were born.
4. Insurance cards are good for 6 months, but they are only good for getting New York registration for 45 days. If you show up after 48 days (because it was a holiday in DMV-land when you showed up after a legal 40 days), you will be sent away.
5. If you call your insurance company, they have a special ability to falsify the effective date of your insurance card in New York, so you can get your registration according to the laws of the state, because New York values a random date within 45 days much more than an accurate date.
6. After you have found a non-DMV-land holiday, your birth certificate, and a New York insurance card with a date that New York likes, you will be given a little piece of paper with your name and no picture and told to use that as your license until your actual photo ID arrives in 3 to 5 weeks, to give the magical elves enough time to weave the license together from angel dust. One of those run-of-the-mill printers that those other inferior states use to print off licenses right then and there in front of you clearly would not be good enough for New York. Until the elves are finished, you will twiddle your thumbs and not buy booze or get on an airplane.
7. After you have paid the good state for your little piece of paper, you must find a mechanic with a big yellow sign and pay them 20 more dollars to inspect your car and determine that it is in fact a running automobile and not just a random pile of aluminum that you just spent two weeks trying to get license plates for.
8. But when you find the mechanic, you must schedule an appointment for the next day, because clearly you couldn't schedule an appointment for an hour from now when they say they can get you in if you stayed there instead of leaving and coming back.

And then when you're all done, you drive off much the same way you somehow managed to do before the state of New York had graced you with the honor of its legitimacy.
- posted by Darcey @ 8:20 PM