Where is that Piece of Paper?

I am not a genius regarding filing and paperwork.  Indeed it has become a family joke that things get filed under various titles : Husband’s travel could be under C (his name); S for spouse (not really), F for family, T for travel, W for work or any other logical-for-that-day area.

So the school transportation insurance folks want 2 estimates and proof of ownership before they authorise repairs to the car that the school bus dented. That should not be tough, thinks I.  Got the estimates, then the proof of car came in.  Yes we owned the car, or more precisely some bank, somewhere owns the car, we just pay them to use it for a few years, and eventually it will be ours.  So the title was with the bank.  That left the registration.  That is the bit you leave in the  car and produce when the men in blue suggest you are speeding.

There we found a problem.  Yes we had the tags, but the bit of paper was awal! Mine was not in my car, and his was not in his car either.  We came to the conclusion that apart from being my fault (of course) we had taken the little squares off the paper, and because the paper contained details about the car, we shredded the paper – major OOOPs! The paper was the registration.

In Georgia that means you have to download and sign a bunch of papers – about 10 pages long. So we filled them in and last week i took them to the appropriate office.  “Cash or check only” says the sign. The sign was at the checkout area, not at the beginning of the line.  How many people have money on them?  not me!  I was fumbling around searching for lost quarters, odd dollar bills, anything that might add up to something that the government would need, and finally confessed to the lady behind the counter.  ‘How much will this cost?”

“Nothing” she cheerfully retorted!  What? the government does something for nothing? Yes indeed they did. Turns out we didn’t even need to print out and fill in that bucket of forms either – they needed my driver’s license and that was it.  Two registrations in hand in less than 15 minutes – an efficient government office that provides things for free.  The sun was shining on me that day, and I came away with what I needed to put into the car, just in case i was caught speeding, and definately needed to get the school insurance to authorise repairs for my car.

That piece of paper in now in its rightful place in with the insurance paper – just like it should be.