I was noodling through downtown Oxnard a couple weeks ago, when a cop whooped-whooped me with the flashing lights and everything. I had been on autopilot, stopping-and-going through the endless stop signs on Fifth, so I had absolutely no idea what I had done.

Cop: Do you know what you did, ma’am?
Me: I have absolutely no idea what I did.

Pro Tip! When dealing with law enforcement, be scrupulously polite, make plenty of eye contact, be friendly and sincere. This can be vastly helpful in the long run. Also, it doesn’t hurt to be female. Work the cutie angle if young, the sweet-slightly-dotty angle if old. I’m a feminist, but sorry, if one has it to shake, one should shake it.

So, my registration had expired. I hadn’t received the renewal thingie in the post, which isn’t completely surprising, as my Elderly Relative, with whom I live, has a new and adorable trick of throwing away the mail from time to time. So, I got a fix-it citation, promised to get it fixed-it, put it off for two weeks, and finally shambled to the DMV. It was 10am on a Monday, there weren’t a lot of people there — oh, yeah, I was gonna get it done!

What could possibly go wrong?

Hee hee! Ah, hahahaha HA HA HAAAAA! I shall put aside the “opening a can of worms” metaphor and use instead the “finding termite damage in your beloved home” metaphor. My DMV dude, a Ventura version of Henry Rollins, kept uncovering more and more absolute madness relating to my car’s registration, to its ownership, to the puzzling lack of smog check proof (for, like, decades). Upon every new discovery of rot, Henry would shout “oh my GOD, what else are you hiding from me?” Everything was so screwy, on so many levels, that the system just couldn’t handle it. My unassuming ’93 station wagon had given the DMV bureaucratic constipation.

Pro Tip! At the DMV, also be friendly and establish eye contact but also be brisk, businesslike, and get to the point. Bring all your paperwork, including the lien release that is sitting on your damn bedside table. This will allow you NOT to drive for half an hour, enter your house, pick up the lien release, exit your house, and drive half an hour back again.

After my charming home visit, I had one hour to find a smog test place, get smogged and pass, and get back to the DMV before Ventura Henry left for the day.

Pro Tip! At the smog test place, don’t play Latino hip hop on your radio. Because when the smog guy moves your car, he will hear it and assume that you speak Spanish. Then he will approach you and talk for two full paragraphs while you say “uh huh uh huh” before timidly stopping him and telling him you don’t speak Spanish. Then he’ll look at you funny and probably smirk. This may have happened to me. Oh, also don’t leave your reading glasses there.

I made it back to the muscley, tatted arms of Ventura Henry with twenty minutes to spare. With every piece of correct paperwork I produced, he would shout “all RIGHT!” My prize was a jolly red 2011 registration sticker.

It was like the world’s most boring and expensive scavenger hunt.

Pro Tip! Come back to the office and blog about it, so your entire day is completely shot! Bam, done!