A Warrant out on my mother...

So... guess this is a good one to start out the craziness ;) It happened yesterday, but I think it still counts since I actually set up this blog 2 days ago...

(Premise) We moved in my mother (Mummi Squeeze) last Saturday. She's going on an LDS Church Mission to Finland where she is originally from. Since my father passed away last year, she's been living on her own and now it's not necessary that she keep her apartment. We've been helping her out with things, and in this case: car insurance. Dad Squeeze left on a day trip to Los Angeles to purchase some equipment for work... he left REALLY early so I get a phone call from him still early in the morning. Our car insurance has been suspended... WHAT?! We just paid a buttload of money to get it taken care of. May I remind you we have a 16-year-old son and an 84-year-old grandmother (who doesn't have a clean record either!) on our car insurance???

(Point) Ok... now I have to spend the day trying to figure out:

• HOW to reinstate our insurance because it's the last day of the month (and we HAVE to have car insurance)
• WHY our insurance is suspended

After calling the insurance agent, it's because my mother's drivers license is suspended...Seems as though my mother had an accident and never paid for it. Well, after calling the city, she DID pay for it and it was recorded... BUT she had a speeding ticket back in 2008 and never paid for it. Hence, a warrant for her arrest. So, after getting her side of the story, we headed down to a different city court building to pay the $100 warrant fee (which right now is a large sum of money that we don't want to be paying, but must).

We arrive and my mother wants to plead her case to the clerk (as I'm slowly rolling my eyes into the back of my head...). My mother says that the judge would dismiss paying the fine if she avoids any traffic violations for 6 months. She listens, pulls up some paperwork, and then heads to the back office. She comes back and lets us know that she is clear and we don't have to pay the $100... WHAT??! I cannot tell you that almost all the things we've done to get her ready for her mission, she apparently has some help in higher powers.

So here comes the city clerk with additional papers and says: "I apologize... this was a clerical error... in fact, it was MY error." So here's the lady responsible for this... but at least she was apologetic and said that she would take care of things. We still had to head to the DMV to reinstate her license, but that would be taken care of as well. She handed us her business card in case there were issues. And yes... there would be issues.

So off we headed to the DMV... I can honestly tell you, at least it was air conditioned. Oh boy... the line... it seemed to go on forever. We finally got up the front, and received a numbered ticket. That's it?! We stood in line to get a number?! Yup... now to go sit on those lovely hard plastic chairs until your number is called. 

About 45 minutes later, and some fine people watching, our number was finally called. We headed up the the window and handed the papers from the city clerk. She looked like a deer in headlights. Apparently she deals with the druggies and drunkards... we were neither. So her supervisor came over and looked at them and said, "Reinstatement fee is $35". But we didn't make the mistake! It was the city court... let them pay the fee! 

Luckily that business card came in handy and I called the city clerk who made the mistake. She had been on the phone with the central DMV to try to get the fee waived. She explained this to the supervisor who had to find out if it was all legit. We went back to sit on those lovely plastic chairs, with the cold air conditioning blasting. After an additional 10 minutes of people watching, Mummi Squeeze's license had been cleared and reinstated with no money out of her pocket! Of course, this whole ordeal took 3 hours... and finally off to the insurance office to show proof ;)

If you are looking to kill time: head to the DMV...