December 06, 2005
In other words, I drive along and around hordes and huddles of high school kids every afternoon.
Today it's about 20 degrees outside (F). Bitter cold, blustery with knife-like winds, a dim grey sun, snow rolling in. I've got the heater blasting, Bear's chattering about his new reading class with the specialist and how they're doing 'really cool craft projects' and I'm ignoring my cell phone.
When next to me on the sidewalk I see a guy jogging by in sweatpants and a t-shirt.
Sweatpants. And a t-shirt.
In weather so cold that your spit freezes before it hits the ground.
Because, you know. When you're a teenager you actually get endowed with superpowers. Like imperviousness to cold and frostbite.
Oh, but he's cute. Floppy Hugh Grant auburn hair, wide shoulders, flirty grin. He runs up to a gaggle of pretty girls who are wearing what look like big versions of Barbie Winter Party outfits - adorable hats, coordinated mittens, sleek coats, thin jeans, high-heeled boots. Lots of pink and white, with long hair flowing down their backs.
Cute boy jogs into them, grinning. Then turns around and JOGS BACKWARDS into the intersection while chatting to them. In his t-shirt.
The girls giggle and toss their hair and tease him and point to his t-shirt and make concerned faces.
From the back seat, from Bear; "Hey! He isn't wearing his coat! And he didn't look both ways before crossing the street! That's not safety!!"
The guy continues to jog backwards, cars and other pedestrians stop to give him way, and finally he turns around and begins sprinting off with a jaunty wave to the girls.
I shake my head. I do NOT remember being this dumb. I do NOT remember being this blatantly dumb, anyway. Am I old or is this just one of those stunts that make you think a guy is a real piece of work and then 10 years later you realize that the same kid has grown up and gone to Fordham and now he's your boss?
I muttered to myself. Bad thoughts.
From the back seat; "What did you say, Mommy?"
Me; "Uh, I said, look - there goes the future President of the United States of America."
From the back seat; "I don't know, Mommy. I don't think you can be President if you don't watch where you're going."
And this is why, everyday, I thank my stars that I get to be Bear's mother.
Posted by: Elizabeth at
10:46 AM
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Just saying.
So, I have spent over 3 hours on the phone today. Two of those hours, and I kid you not, were spent on hold. The upshot is that I have to go downtown to the horse-head statue building again and get a certified letter from the traffic court there that they have no record of the accident and subsequent judgement.
I have spoken to 6 different people.
The first told me that I had to go get something called a half-sheet and special bad-driver's insurance, and keep that insurance for 3 years, and also pay $140 in fines.
The second told me to go away, there are no half-sheets for 19 year-old accidents and that I needed to file an affidavit for expungement.
The third said he knew nothing about expungements but it didn't sound right to him. He put me on hold to look up my record. I sat on hold for 28 minutes. 28 minutes, people. Afraid to hang up. But finally I had to.
I called back and sat in the "operators will be with you soon" queue for over an hour. Finally, after hangin up and trying again, I got a live body. The fourth told me that I needed to present myself in person at the Cook County 1st Circuit Court and make arrangements to pay the court fees and fines from 19 years ago (which I already did, once, 12 years ago) and then get a receipt which I would mail to Springfield with $70 in additional reinstatement fees plus the special bad-driver's insurance. For 1 year this time.
I called Cook County Circuit Court 6 times before someone answered the phone. I asked where I should go to pay these fees (that I paid 12 years ago already) so I could get my license back. They told me I was off my rocker and nothing over 7 years old is kept in the records much less scheduled for payment. They told me to call Jesse White's office back and get some clarification.
They gave me a phone number to call for Jesse White. (312) 793-5603.
It's disconnected.
I called the number I've been calling for over a year. I was hoping for someone nice and clear and intelligent. Not so much. The fifth person of the day had clearly had skipped her happy pill this morning. She told me that there was no way I'd had a legal driver's license in the last 19 years and that I'd played the system. I told them that they were wrong, and told them that I had paid the fees, the fines, had the special insurance, and gotten a letter of clearnace andmade myself completely legal. A dozen years ago. They told me I was lying. I hung up on that one.
And called back.
I got LeVonne. She was my sixth, and final, employee of Jesse White that I spoke to today. She re-iterated what Number 1 had told me about that half-sheet from Cook County saying that there was no longer any record of the accident or judgement. I made her repeat that - that I needed proof that there was nothing left. She agreed. I asked didn't her computer talk to their computer since all the computers worked for the same State? She said no, that the county and the state were different entities. I said okay, then.
She told me to get the half-sheet and mail it to Springfield with the additional $70 sincethe first $70 we paid was at a local facility and they had no record of that.
She also said that the record of my paying the fines and getting the special insurance was all in my file if someone had bothered to scroll down. Not that we're naming names, old #5 and #1.
Stay tuned....
Posted by: Elizabeth at
08:50 AM
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December 05, 2005
Until I read it.
Seems that Jesse White, Secretary of State, had -in light of 9/11- joined up the Illinois Driver's Information with that of the whole entire country. Joined it up, electronicified it, merged it, spindled it, mutilated it, and doshgarn it, just about sauteed it.
And when he was done, wouldn't you know it, but there's was an irregularity in my records and he was inviting me to fix it before I would be allowed to renew my driver's license.
Why thank you, Mr. Jesse White.
So CD and I trudged downtown to the Secretary of State's office in the building near the statue that looks like a horsehead. Picasso, I think. And we waited in about 10 different lines and were finally told that we should come back some other day because they didn't know me, had never heard of me, and I should call first.
So I went home, and started making phone calls and writing letters. For the next three months, I did this. My birthday came, and went. And I was driving on an expired licence that was not suspended but could not be renewed.
The first glimmer of help I had was a nice lady in Springfield. She informed me that this had to do with an accident I had. In 1986. I knew about the accident, it was my only accident. It happened in the snowy winter when I was 20 years old and an uncertain driver and I slid on a patch of ice and tagged a Pinto in my dad's powder-blue 1976 Chevy Impala.
My dad, as it turned out, had let the insurance on the Impala lapse.
And thus did I end up paying $500 in fees, fines, penalties and damages for a ding on a fender of a car older than I was. By the time I did so, I had given up driving altogether and stayed a walker and cabber for many years. But Illinois eventually gave me a letter of clearance and thus when I moved back to Boston and decided it was time I start driving again I was able to get a new license.
12 frigging years ago.
Seemingly, Mr. Jesse White is in need of money and has decided to conveniently forget this and wanted his $500. Again. With interest.
So I slogged and battled and whipped out my checkbook and to no avail. Each time I tried to get my new license, I was rejected.
Then it was last spring, and on a random day I called Springfield again. Tiredly, sadly asking the lady on the phone if there was any way in the world I could fix this thing. Since I was driving around on an expired and non-suspended license. And she said that it had nothing to do with that accident long ago, it was about a ticket I got in 1998 and never paid. (My bad.)
With a gleam in my eye I offered to throw money at the problem. She agreed that would be a fine solution and she would send me the paperwork so I could do so.
The paperwork never came.
So I called back and was told that I had to call the Cook County Courthouse to get the number of the case and THEN make an appointment to go to court and THEN pay the fines.
So I did that.
The people at the Cook County Courthouse told me that they would send me the paperwork and a courtdate.
The paperwork never came.
But I did get another letter from Mr. Jesse White. And while I was still honored that such a busy man as the Secretary of State would go out of his way to find the time to make my life a living hell for 9 months, I was no closer to a solution than I had been before. Just very, very clear that I was under no circumstances allowed to renew my license.
It was a fine summer, me and my expired and non-suspended license drove all the way to Boston and back with a nice side trip through upstate New York's grape country and when we got home, I even began driving Bear to and from school each day.
I admit it, I was begining to get frustrated. And maybe, perhaps, a little bitter. Maybe.
But here came my birthday. Again. The anniversary of Jesse White's first letter to me. And I thought, let's try. Again.
So I called Springfield.
Again.
And the nice lady on the phone looked up my number and hummed alot into my ear and then finally told me that it looked I had left to do was to pay the fine from the ticket from 1998. I did so. It took a week to process.
Then I called back last Friday and the same sweet lady told me I needed to pay a $70 reinstatement fee at any local DMV and once it had processed, I would be cleared to get my drvier's license renewed.
I called CD in whoops of joy and on his lunch hour he scampered over to the local DMV station and paid the $70 fee on my behalf. He brought home the precious receipt and this afternoon we all met up and headed over to get my driver's license. I even blew-dry my hair for the picture.
We filed in, and I presented my pile of documents to clerk #9. My passport, my old license, a utility bill with my current address, the sundry receipts, and a note from my mother saying that I was a really good driver.
She called up my record and shook her head and said "Hon, you gotta go with my supervisor around the corner here."
So I went around the corner to the blue section and he looked at his computer screen and grunted and gave me an angry look.
"You got an accident here, and you weren't insured," he said nastily, from high atop his stool.
"Yes," I agreed. "Yes, 20 years ago. But it is taken care of."
He shook his head. "No it isn't. There are 3 stops on this record. You're suspended."
I showed him my receipts, and explained about the lady in Springfield.
He shook his head again. "What I suggest is you call your lady in Springfield and see what you really need to do to take care of this. Because we can't help you here. You have to fix these things before you come in here wasting people's time."
I nodded and took back my piles of paper, my passport, my old license, and I made my way over to where CD and Bear were sitting in a pile on a beige plastic chair. There faces were wide with big smiles of support.
"Uh, it isn't fixed," I whispered. "The stuff is still in the computer as not fixed."
We walked out into the bitter cold, and jumped back into the mini-van. "I don't understand," CD huffed. "It was fine. I paid the reinstatement fee at the other station and they processed it while I waited. They said you were good to go."
I shrugged. And then collapsed into tears. CD awkwardly held me from the driver's seat while I cried out a year's worth of frustration and exhaustion.
And from the backseat, a little voice. "It's OK, Mommy. You did your best..."
If only that were good enough.
Jesse White, Secretary of State, you can go suck eggs. You and your entire office of dingbats. I am sick of you. I am sick of them. I am sick of this. I want no more fancy letters. I want to make no more non-toll-free phone calls to Springfield. I want my license, I want it now.
People who want to cause this much aggravation in my life had better dang well be related to me by blood or marriage. So unless you are intent on courting my mother, who is a fine woman and worthy of much better than yourself, I strongly suggest you get off your appointed ass and fix my record.
That is all.
Posted by: Elizabeth at
02:08 PM
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