Murphy's Law

There are several things you need to know before reading much further in this post.

1) We own two cars. Well, a car and a minivan, but you know what I mean.

2) I drive the minivan and Duane drives the car.

3) Duane drives the car about five miles a day round trip.

4) The car is parked on the street in front of the house.

5) Both vehicles are in my name.

6) My birthday is in October.

Got all that? Good!

Duane informed me last night that we would have to make a quick trip to the BMV today. Turns out a letter arrived yesterday stating that due to a processing error at the BMV the registration renewal notice for the car was never sent out. From back in October!! And we hadn't noticed! Included in the letter was a 15 day extension so we could get the registration taken care of without any problem.

This morning we drove the minivan to the BMV and got the registration for the car renewed. No problem. We got home and Duane went out front to put the new sticker on the car. Guess what he found? A ticket on the car for expired tags! A ticket that had been written about an hour and a half earlier.

You guessed it, didn't you?

I decided to contest the ticket. The funny part is that when I called about the ticket, they said the error from the BMV is actually a pretty common problem. Of course, I didn't say that our tags had been expired for several months.

Following the advice of the guy on the phone I wrote a letter explaining the situation, enclosed a copy of the letter from the BMV and a copy of the new registration. Hopefully that will be enough to get me out of the ticket. I'll find out next week.

I haven't gotten a ticket since 1995 and that was when the meter I was parked at expired. I want my clean(ish) record back!