Whoop, whoop.

I hate to take up your time whining once again about the DMV but YOU GUYS.

I went. I churned out various (pointless) paperwork.

AND I CONQUERED!

I really can't describe the joy that filled my heart when I left victorious with newly registered plates in my little hands. I stopped myself just short of shouting "I DID IT!!!" from the cold concrete steps followed by numerous fist pumps.

Because it is quite a feat, after all.

I don't need to tell you how many hoops you need--I mean, get!--to jump through in order to pay a whole lot of money to legally drive a vehicle. It really makes a hard-working, tax-paying citizen feel good, you know? Like, oh YES! I get to prove my identity 50,000 times today and STILL walk in with fingers crossed that I will walk out a success.

Add in a change of state AND name in the last 18 months and you've got yourself a good ol' fashioned nightmare! WHEE!

...Are you still with me?

(You are such good friends.)

I could talk about the depressing lighting, the horrible folding chairs that surround a marble entryway where unhappy workers literally yell, "NEXT!" and have to deal with even more unhappy customers, which is even more depressing than the lighting (and that's saying something).

But that's how it goes sometimes. You take deep breaths, you square your shoulders, you take that number and you bring lots of reading materials and pretend to read them while furtively watching the clock tick-tock closer and closer to "Sorry, we're closed. Please take more vacation time tomorrow."

And sometimes...well, sometimes you just get lucky. There is no skill involved, there are many, many, endless variables of things that can go wrong. But there are days, like mine yesterday, when you get to emerge bursting with a strange sort of pride at defeating the mind-boggling bureaucracy that is the DMV.

You walk taller, head up, and you wipe the perspiration from your brow that gathered as your trembling hand pushed insurance card after driver's license after title after...DOESN'T MATTER! IT IS FINISHED!

And you enter your car and allow yourself one fist pump and a quiet gleeful, congratulatory "Yessss!" and you try to forget how much time, money and energy you just lost. As well as the fact that you will be back in two years.

Maybe even with a change of address--just for kicks.