illegal no more?

today i did something i hadn’t done in a long time…

…walked into a d.p.s. office. for all those outside of texas, who don’t know what d.p.s. is (department of public safety) substitute in “d.m.v.” and you get the idea. i had to go get my driver’s license renewed.

now, before any of you bum rush the comments to wish me a happy birthday, since we all know that’s when your licenseexpires, understand mine had been expired for a while. my birthday’s actually in june, so my license had expired in june…

…of 2k7.

this dragged out due to a letter arriving in my hands in may of 2k7 letting me know that i couldn’t renew until i settled up on a warrant from march that came from an unpaid ticket in january…

…of 2k6.

so for all those keeping score, that’s an expired license for a year and five months, from a warrant that had aged two years and eight months, from a ticket that was six weeks shy of being unpaid for three years.

i’m not bragging, i’m just sayin’…

but that all ended around 8:30am this morning, ’cause about two weeks ago i shot a five hundred dollar money order to a little town west of san antonio which cleared the ticket, and therefore the warrant, and today renewed my license, gambling that the warrant had, in fact, been cleared. i carried in my expired driver’s license, social security card, and the receipts for both the money order (courtesy of wells fargo) and the post office (to show it had been mailed) just in case…but no cash. so, i had to send shane for that as i had him drive me over just in case…

…which in hindsight having your most felonious friend be your designated driver when you’re going to a cop shop is like having shane be my designated driver in the typical sense of the phrase, but never mind that now. we got the job done, and that’s what matters. after almost three years, and close to 100,000 miles driven since, i am once again street legal.

again, i’m not bragging – i’m just sayin’.

for all curious why it had been more than a decade since i’d been in the d.p.s. office it’s because if you don’t move, and don’t get any tickets, you can renew online…which is what i’d done since i was twenty-two when it expired andi had to go have a new picture taken…and that fifteen year old picture of me is what’s still on my license – all the more amusing ’cause most people that see it say i look YOUNGER in person than i do on there.

maybe i’m aging in reverse?