I Guess It Could Be Worse

Normally on Friday nights I go to the beach and meet up with neighbors and friends for a weekly sunset pot luck dinner. I didn’t go tonight.

My truck safety inspection is due by the end of the month. Although I have seen others who for months and in one case about a year overdue, with my luck I would get pulled over and ticketed days from now.

Well, I had renewed my registration a few months back but can not find the registration card which is needed for the safety check. Although the date is shown on the vehicle tag sticker, i is not enough, you need the paperwork and I misplaced it. It should have been in the truck, but the expression ‘should of’ makes the world go around. I needed a few things in town anyway so I headed up there at about 1:15 PM.

The DMV was fairly empty so I hoped for a fairly quick time. Here in Hawaii they have a greeter who makes sure you have your proper paperwork and then assigns you a number. You sit outside in the courtyard and over the P.A. and on a TV screen your number is announced along with which counter to go to. Back on the mainland many places make you stand in a line to be directed to another line. Here we sit outside in nice weather. The tickets are not called in order and I think I have cracked part of the code. Tickets have a letter first like M, C or R and so on. I think M is for licenses (M for Motor), C for Commercial, R for Road Test and license tests and so on.  So as I wait they called varios numbers. Mine was M-307. The person called a few before my was M-703. I didn’t have dyslexia so I waited.

The greeter had told me my replacement registration would be $6. I had cash, my insurance info, my license and my old expired registration. The wait outsie was almost exactly 1 hour. It seems that there was not a full compliment of clerks inside today; still, 1 hour is not a horrible wait. When my number was called I headed inside to the proper spot and found a seasoned worker was training a new hire for that position. She was efficient even though she asked if each step was correct. The fee was only $5 because I did not need new stickers for my tags, just the new paperwork for the inspection. Time inside was 5 to 10 minutes.

The inspection station I normally use it nearby DMV and Costco. I figured I could do both and still get to pot luck. When I pulled into the space where the inspection takes place, they had moved! As I backed out and was turning around, there they were! They now have a pull through warehouse slot! I didn’t have to go anywhere after all to get the inspection. One person ahead of me so I had a short wait. My truck passed inspection easily. We don’t do any emission testing here, probably because of the volcanic smoke we get that is worse than all the vehicle smog.

I went into Costco and noticed there was easy parking today and the lines were fairly short. I looked around the prepared food area and didn’t see anything I could get that did not require me to head home and prepare. I opted for a bagged salad with a dressing packet inside. I was out of Costco by 4:11 PM and that cost was only $5.21. It IS possible to get out of Costco without paying over $100.

Traffic was heavy and although I needed to pick up some things from Walmart along the way home, I opted for the pot luck and passed Walmart. I hit even more traffic and heard sirens and would have just headed back to Walmart but there was no easy way to back track. As I got closer to home it started raining and I could see down the coast that our spot by the ocean would probably get rain tonight. Since we don’t have a good place to take shelter, I knew by then that I would be eating at home tonight.

I finished what was left of a chicken salad plate and had a beer because one of the things I was going to buy today was soda. Beer is pretty much the only cold drink I had handy.

I went to bed early partly because I was up early this morning to participate in a weekly radio show from the U.K. which begins at 6 AM my time, but the sound of heavy rain woke me up at 10:30 PM. To keep the dogs from waking up, I quietly went into the hall bathroom, lit by only a night light. The light keps me from having to have a bright light on which would totally wake me up. I felt water against my leg and my first thought was that the there was a leak in the ceiling and this was rain. IT turns out the hose from the floor to the tank was spraying water. I ran down stairs and brought up the carpet shampooer and suctioned up the water on the floor. It had not done enough damage to leak into the down stairs and I plan upon having the floor redone in that bathroom within 2 years.

So now I am wide awake and hungry and still don’t have anything cold to drink. I may make some Tang drink or a cup of tea. For food I may dig into that bag of salad I bought.

I will be up now for many hours and I have two things I must do tomorrow. I will stop by the post office and then go to a memorial service for our Vet who passed away suddenly. I hope the weather holds up as we are having the service in a nearby park. Afterwards I’ll go back into town and do the rest of my shopping.