Round and Round She Goes…

And where she stops, nobody cares… 

😀

My son alleges that he managed to get my driver’s license invalidated. Which is to say, it is now illegal for me to drive. (Thus his excuse for hijacking my car, right?)

Well. Ohhhhkayyyy. 

Who can tell us whether that’s true? Who can say whether this little plastic-coated document is good for anything other than decoration?

Well: the Department of Motor Vehicles, of course.

I can’t easily get myself down to DMV in this unholy heat: certainly not without a car of my own to navigate the insane traffic.

Ohhhhkayyyy….

So I got the bright idea to go into a store or business that COULD check whether a document that you use as ID for check-cashing and the like is actually valid. Seems like that oughta work, right?

😀

It gets better and better. 

First store I went into, they didn’t know how to call up your driver’s license and confirm it.

Got that? They were accepting checks, but they didn’t know how to tell whether the checks were valid! Or even whether you’re the person whose name is on the damn check!!

Hmmmmm….

Moving on: Didn’t get much further with the other places in that shopping center.

None of them said my driver’s license was invalid. That was good. I guess.

But none of them could really confirm that my driver’s license could safely be used as ID for check-cashing. Or not. 

Sooooo….. I still don’t know a damn thing. To confirm or deconfirm, somehow I’ll have to get out to the credit union where my banking account resides: on the Arizona State University West Campus, a half-hour drive on the other side of the freeway from here!!

My son has grabbed my car, and so getting over there is darned near impossible. Tomorrow I’ll try calling them on the phone…but doubt that I’ll get far with that.

Otherwise..I’ll either have to hire an Uber to drive me out there and back, or try to mooch a ride with a friend.

{chortle!}

Entertaining as Hell, isn’t it?

Didnja just know Hell is endlessly hilarious?

***

Phoenix is an LA-style city, meaning that you need a car to get around — whether it’s across the city or a few blocks up to the local grocery store.

This, I can cope with by hiring the Uber driver who lives across the street. But really…that IS a PITA, and I’d sure rather not be bothered with it.

***

What if I rent or buy a car, park it in a rented space in a nearby garage (where my kid can’t find it), and go on about my business? Remember: my driver’s license is hidden in my own car, where I normally store it so I don’t have to carry a purse with me everyplace I go. 

Conundrum: That notwithstanding, I haven’t asked whether that license is still valid, or whether the kid has contrived to quash it. To do that, I’ll have to traipse to the DMV office and stand in line till every cow in Arizona comes home. So…it could be that even if I get it back or get another copy, it may be worthless.

LOL! This is getting so ridiculous that even I think it’s kinda funny.

So, y’know what I think is the best thing to do?

Nothing. 

Yeah: nothing. 

Let him keep the damn car. He can pay the insurance and the taxes on it. (These, lemme tellya, are freakin’exorbitant!)

Between Uber, regular taxicabs, and public transit, it’s not that hard to get around this city car-free. In fact, if and when I get the car back, I may sell it: just to be rid of it and all its panorama of expenses. Now that I’ve learned to get around without it, why the hell do I need it?

Ahhhh to be in Berkeley, where you can live comfortably without a car!

No kidding! My great-grandmother and her daughter, my great-aunt, lived on a hillside in Berkeley, about a block below where the train from San Francisco passed through a tunnel into Kensington, the suburb where my cousins lived. But you could clamber up a concrete staircase to the top of that tunnel, where you’d find yourself on the neighborhood street that led to the cousins’ house. Great-Grandmother and Great-Aunt lived in Berkeley for year after year after year…and never owned a car! 

Can you imagine?

Well. You couldn’t do that here; not and retain any grip on your sanity. You’d melt into the pavement. 😀

***

Mumbling on in that precinct: y’know… I suspect it would not cost much more to drive a rental car than it does to own a car and pay the taxes, insurance, and maintenance.

DXH and I did that: he preferred to rent a car rather than own it. Accordingly, for year after year, the car at our house was NOT our car: it belonged to a rental company. If there was a logic behind that preference, I never understood it. Probably it had to do with the fact that he was deducting it from his taxes for his law practice. It was, in theory, a business expense, not a personal vehicle.

I think. But couldn’t swear to that. All I know is that we didn’t actually own the car parked in our driveway.

Sooo…do I need to “actually own” the car parked in my garage? Would it be more advantageous to rent it?

Something to look into.