Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Mr. State Trooper

Sitting up late with a weird-feeling stomach,  I'm busy (when not running to the bathroom) enumerating all the horrible things that could be wrong with me.  Let's see, I went swimming this week - can cholera survive chlorine?  Or maybe it's e coli from the bagged lettuce, like last time.  Or...I don't know...a dreadful stomach virus that is going to move through the family and effectively ruin our 4-day weekend.  So many choices!

In the meantime, the past few days have resembled nothing so much as living at the bottom of a swamp - drizzly, high 70's, and humid beyond belief.  Going outside and taking a deep breath feels as though someone is sticking a plastic bag over your head.  What's more, the wet weather has brought out masses of mosquitoes, all lying in wait for us to walk out our front door.

So yes, I AM having a good time this summer.  And you?

Oh, and have I mentioned that, on my birthday last month, I glanced at my driver's license and realized it expired that very day, and not at the end of the month, as I had thought.  Naturally, I  said, "Well, I'm NOT going to spend my birthday sitting in the DMV!"

Scary
That turns out to have been a bad decision to make.  In fact, it  resulted in my having to make TWO trips to the DMV, as an expired license meant that I needed to present a birth certificate, an item which I did not happen to have on my person the first time around.  My second trip to DMV included a heart-stopping moment as I drove through a tollbooth with my still-expired license (birth certificate tucked safely in my purse) and saw a state trooper step into my lane and put up his hand.  There followed approximately 10 seconds during which I died a thousand deaths, until I realized that it was the guy in the lane to my left who was being pulled over, after which the super-nice trooper waved me on, expired license and all.  Whereupon I drove the rest of the way to the DMV at approximately 35 mph...

You know, this stomach ache could simply be a stress ulcer from living on the wrong side of the law.  I apparently lack the sangfroid needed to live as a fugitive from justice.


[State trooper image: eHow]

15 comments:

  1. Considering the awful scenario that ran through my brain when seeing the title of your post, I'd say you had a great experience! So yeah, thanks for the tight knot that is now in my stomach.

    Hope you feel better soon!

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  2. Wow. I think I would have soiled myself. I'm glad it wasn't you he was pulling over.

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  3. Ugh, humid here too. The other morning I ran in 97% humidity, according to weather.com, and no, it was *not* raining. It was like running through a cloud. All my kids are coughing, and my asthmatic is back on his inhaler regimen.

    Best benefit of our AAA membership is the ability to renew licenses at an AAA location. I haven't been to the DMV since, I think, I changed my name when I got married.

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  4. OMG - reading this reminded me that my license registration renewal came ages ago and got put in a pile of paperwork and forgotten as it's been such a crazy busy few months. Just checked my license - it expired in mid-June OOPS! Thanks for the reminder!!

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  5. Yeah, it's just not right that these things expire on one's actual birthday. How about a little birthday love, DMV? At least the state trooper realized that you were not the droid he was looking for.

    I hope you feel better.

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  6. AnonymousJuly 03, 2013

    Oh, that's HARSH about the DMV requiring you to show up.
    And being sick in humid weather just heaps more suffering onto your poor head.
    I do hope there's a cool, dark, quiet place where you can recover.

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  7. Oh, hope your tummy feels better today. I had the same thing this past Saturday. Naps on Sunday made me feel better and by Monday I could even smile again. So did you have to have a new picture taken too? Here they make us have a new pic every 10 years. My last one shows me bald due to the chemo. blech!

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    1. Yes, it was new pic time. There is nothing more devastating than having to see how much you've aged in 10 years, right? Plus, now our state has a "no smile" rule. I have a feeling my new pic looks quite bizarre, as I practiced in the mirror how to smile without smiling beforehand. I know that sounds crazy, but if I don't at least try to smile, I look horrendous. I have one of those faces where, if I am not actively smiling, people ask me "What's wrong?"

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    2. SC, not smiling makes sense. After all, who is smiling when pulled over by a trooper? (Not me!)

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    3. Just got the new license - the picture is horrifying. My only comfort is the knowledge that I cannot possibly look like that for real - if I did, people would run screaming from me in the street.

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  8. I also would have died a thousand deaths. That's a lot of adrenaline. And where do you live that you only have to have a new license pic every 10 years?!? We have to get new pics EVERY time we renew, which is every four years. Now, thankfully, they always expire at the end of the month AND there's a grace period before I'd have to drag in a birth certificate and/or take a new driving test, but still... I'm not sure which is worse.

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  9. haha I sent for mine to get renewed a few weeks before it expired. It took MONTHS to get my new one. In that time I got pulled over and had my bank account hacked and had to open up a new bank account with a VALID license. That was fun.

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  10. I have two complaints about our licenses: #1 We don't have until the end of our birthday months to get them renewed. #2 We no longer have to go 10 years in between visits (30th, 40th, 50th, birthdays, etc.). Oh no, now it's 7 or 8 years, which I think is a rip off. I cannot believe there's a good reason for this, other than a way for the DMV to generate more revenue.

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  11. Once I went to the DMV to get a new license and picture, and the lady taking the picture took one look at it and offered to take another one. I couldn't even look at it. I mean, who does that? She was satisfied by the second one, which was as awful as they all are. I can't even imagine what the first one was like. She probably thought it was going to infect her camera.

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