Yesterday on the way to the zoo we passed a title and registration place and it dawned on me that I had forgotten to do something very important. You see, some time in April I had gotten a letter from the state of Texas, some transportation blah, blah, blah, telling me it was time to renew my driver's license. At first, before I opened the letter, I thought I had gotten another ticket for running a red light. Those damn cameras are everywhere here. I used to run red lights light crazy because I'm always late and my car is super heavy so once it's going you don't want to slam on the brakes. After one $75 ticket now I'm constantly testing my seat belts and grabbing for things as they fly from the passenger seat to the floor because I refuse to get another stupid ticket for running a red light. There are so many better things I could do with that money.
Anywho, the letter informing me I had to go to the DMV to renew my license came so early, so long before I actually had to go there, that I put it aside, never to be found again, and forgot I needed to renew my license. So yesterday, as we were driving and I remembered that I still needed to do that I was in a little bit of a panic knowing that I was driving with an invalid license. Sorry, it's the type-A in me.
I was kind of hoping to take care of that before school got out, so I only had to take one kid to the DMV with me, but that was not meant to be so the whole Sultan family, minus the lucky one who gets to to go to camp (a.k.a. work) everyday, hopped into the car and went to the Department of Public Safety today. If they weren't safe before we got there they certainly weren't after we arrived.
Our arrival was a little shaky. First of all, every parking space was taken. You know that's never a good sign. We had to drive around and stalk people to get a parking spot. Second, Amanda was asleep so I was going to take her inside in her car seat. Within minutes, while I was still trying to get proof of insurance and registration information out of the glove compartment, Andy did something that made Sarah scream, this absolutely horrible noise she has been making for the last two days that needs to stop very soon or something bad will happen, and of course woke up Amanda. After letting both kids know they would go to their rooms when we got home, I stupidly left Amanda in the car seat and we all went inside. Then she cried until I took her out of the car seat, duh, so I had to carry her the rest of the time while keeping track of my diaper bag, the car seat, and the two older kids.
Luckily for me Andy and Sarah had their Didj and Leapster, because there were about 100 people inside the DMV. No joke. It was packed, which makes sense after how long it took to find a parking spot. It was only 9:30 a.m. Luckily, a lot of them were there for something else, and the line for renewing a license was only about 20 people. That doesn't sound so bad, but do you know how long it takes 20 people to go through that line? It seems like forever, but it was only about an hour. An hour with a baby on your hip and two on the floor seems like an eternity. Amanda was about to lose it by the time we got to the front because she was hungry and tired and we had been up since 5 a.m. (yeah, I don't know what's up with that but it's been going on for over a week now). I remember before kids how I would have been so annoyed to stand in line somewhere for an hour because I had so many better things to do. Now I would love to stand in line by myself without anybody drooling on me or asking me to referee or yelling at me for something like not knowing they were going to be thirsty and bringing them a sippy cup. Oh, if only I knew then what was to come.
Finally we got up to the counter and it was pretty painless. I thought for sure since my license was expired they were going to make me take the written test and the driving test and whatever else they could make me take to teach me a lesson, but they really just took my finger prints, made me take the shortest eye test in history and took my pictures. $25 later I was out of there.
In the end, what could have been a horrible experience wasn't too bad. The kids were occupied enough that they didn't fight and were quiet. We got out of there just in time before Amanda lost it. Nobody got hurt and I didn't lose my cool. What a great way to spend our first day of summer vacation. Can't wait to see what we can come up with next!
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