At long last legal

Having spent the entirety of yesterday morning at the California DMV, we are finally legal in this state! It has been an interesting saga!

I had what I thought was a brilliant idea when we were packing in January: if we left our car titles in our safety deposit box in Springfield, we would not misplace them in the moving shuffle. OOPS! After we got our feet on the ground here, we looked into getting our California drivers licenses and car registration.

Guess what? You need a title to register a car-DUH!!!

So, I asked my sister Julie to go to our Springfield bank and get the title for us. OOPS! I had given her the key to the safety deposit box just before we left. Unfortunately, I gave it to her at the same time I was sending my dad's cat home with her (among other things), and she now cannot find the key.

So, I decided to mail her the one other key to the safety deposit box, which I had brought with us. I put it in a stamped envelope in my bicycle basket, along with some other mail, and headed up to the nearby post office. OOPS! When I got there, that envelope was no longer in the basket. I measured with another envelope, and, sure enough, the slots in my metal basket were large enough to let it slide through.

So, I went up and down the street several times: on bike, on foot, on one side, and then on the other. No luck. So I called Julie and let her know what happened. Nothing to do but wait.

My faith in humanity was restored when Julie received the key a few days later. Some decent human being saw this dropped envelope and mailed it!

Julie then went to the bank, key in hand, only to learn she was not on the list of those authorized to access the safety deposit box. She pushed the issue with the bank. I called and pushed the issue with the bank. There is no wiggle room for opening safety deposit boxes if you do not have prior written authorization.

So Julie brought the key back to us when she visited Santa Cruz in March. All we could do is wait until we were back in Springfield to open the box ourselves, which we did. We retrieved the titles. And, we got Julie officially authorized to use that darn safety deposit box!

Titles in hand, we were able to then sell Rich's car when we were home and get the Prius, which we drove out to California, registered. WHEW. Our new insurance agency here was happy we finally had the paperwork they needed-delivered today during my morning errands. On foot, of course.