Recently, well almost 30 days ago, my wife and I bought a Cushman truckster, a little three-wheeled vehicle with an OMC 2 cylinder motor. We bought this Cushman because gas keeps going up and it gets great gas mileage. We figure it is just the thing to run about town in, like to the hardware store, to the grocery store, to visit my mother, etc.
It has a steering wheel like a car, gas, brake and clutch pedals like a car, a gear shift lever like a car, doors like a car, windshield wipers like a car,,,,,you're getting the picture, it is like a car except it has three wheels.
I went to the downtown license office this afternoon to title the machine. I have been going to the Glen Isle or the Fremont office since Blount privatized them and because they are not downtown...don't get me started on that....but since I went to the post office (I like the post office on Chestnut better than the one on Glen Isle...well actually, I like the post office out by Kohl's the best, but it is too far to drive out there and the one on Chestnut is closest to my house. There used to be a post office sub station in the Pricecutter on Campbell across from Maschino's but it is no more, now THAT was convenient!)
Anyhow, since I was downtown at the post office, and it was getting close to fine time if I didn't get this title switched over to our name, I decided to go to the downtown license burearu.
So I go through the ordeal of finding a parking spot and walked up the hill and into the canyon between Heer's and the License bureau office. (Let me tell you, a mighty wind was blowing, my friend,in the passageway, a mighty wind was blowing.) I walked into the license bureau lobby and found that the office had been moved to the second floor. The building has the slowest elevators. Luckily this was a slow day, but can you imagine what it is like at the end and the beginning of the month?
I wnet into the second floor office. There were probably 15 people sitting in those fiberglass chairs that look like Eames chairs and that maybe worth something on ebay, but they are cheap knockoffs adn they are not. I looked and thought to myself, "this is gonna hurt," when all of a sudden a woman called out, "What are you here for?" "Car Title," I quickly replied.
I bypassed the Eames lookalike chairs entirely and went directly to her desk. A deeply tanned woman with cleavage was talking with her and getting something out of a desk drawer, paperclips I think. Her cleavage was deep but that wasn't what was distracting me, it was her tan, she looked almost orange. I think she ran the place because I later saw her when I was talking to a guard on the ground floor, she was carrying a fedex envelope and said goodbye to the guard. He seemed to know her.
Why did it move to the second floor. I asked the clerk, (I got in without a line but one quickly formed behind me, I move slow.) She sidestepped my answer with a question, "Isn't it more convenient up here?" I didn't want to spend my afternoon engaged in verbal jousts with a non-state employee conducting state business.
I titled the vehicle and paid the sales tax. I have to get a motorcycle license plate and motorcycle inspection sticker because it is a motorcycle-tricycle.
The clerk gave me a business card with the name of a company that can perform the inspection. She also told me I had to have a motorcycle endorsement on my driver's license.
I took the building's slowest elevator down to the lobby again. I asked the guard a question: "WHO DECIDED TO MOVE THE OFFICE TO THE SECOND FLOOR???" He said you ought to be here at the end of the month when people are getting their plates before the fines kick in, it's a mess he said. He told me there are two more offices in Springfield, adn this one had been downsized.
I asked who owned it, he said he thought the same lady who owned the ones in Springfield also owned the ones in Nixa and Ozark. MMMM>>>>>would that be Shane Shoeler's wife? I know I didn't spell his name correctly but who cares, I'm not a newspaper. This is a blog, we don't have to have all our facts correct.
I decided while I was in the building, to go into the testing room and take the motorcycle written test. I knew I hadn't studied for it, but I have been driving for over 40 years, I have a CDL A with all the endorsements and besides, how hard could it be.
I went through the door. The guy behind the desk affirmed that I needed a motorcycle endorsement to drive the Cushman. I could take the written test there, but I would have to go somewhere else to take the driving portion of the test...like Ozark, Nixa, Strafford, etc.
He also told me that since I was adding an endorsement to my license, and it had been over a year since I took the HAZMAT test, I would have to retake the test to keep the endorsement. "Oh man," I said, "That's a tough test. I failed it twice before I passed it and I thought I was pretty smart."
I took both tests, the motorcycle written test and the HAZMAT test. I flunked the motorcycle test and passed the HAZMAT test. Go figure. He suggested I go outside to the study area, study and come back in and retest. I did as he suggested.
I failed the test again.
WHO DECIDED TO MOVE THAT OFFICE TO THE SECOND FLOOR?
