Menage à Trois Bingo

Friday, I obtained permission to work from home today so that I could take care of my overdue personal property tax and get the car's plates renewed.

This morning, I logged in to the "virtual office" and attempted to get to my pc. Fail.

So I emailed the techies and my boss and took off for City Hall. Assessor's office lady was very nice and fixed up my account so that I just had to pay one locality instead of two (since we all lived for a bit more than a year in St Louis County, we "should" have registered and paid taxes for 2006 in St Louis County). Success.

I went over to the Collector's office to get the total owed and pay the bill. $672.83. Fail.

On the other hand, there is a License office in City Hall. Yippee, if I get all this figured out I can finish the job in one go. But I don't have current insurance cards with me or even in the car. Fail.

Find out the bill can't be paid with a personal check because it's more than two years overdue. Paying by credit card would assess an additional 2.75% (on top of all the penalties already included in that figure), and I don't get a tax receipt for three to five days. Must be cash, cashiers' check, or money order. Utter fail.

So I left there and walked back to my car to figure out what to do next. Talk to ohari, determine that I'm going to have to go home and print insurance cards. Call the bank to find out the daily ATM withdrawal limit = $500. Must go to the bank and make an in-person withdrawal. Fail.

Get in the car, start driving home. Turn on Jefferson to go down to 44. The viaduct has been demolished and Jefferson ends just south of Spruce. Fail.

Turn around to get back on the highway, and get on going east rather than west. Fail.

Finally get home, print the insurance cards. Woot, a success!

Back in the car, out Manchester to the bank branch that isn't in the Kirkwood Wal-mart (we're boycotting that one. Long story.) Except it's St. Patrick's Day in Dogtown, and the parade just ended. Masses of green-clad pedestrians, police cars and lane closings. Fail.

Bank teller is very friendly and nice and gives me an envelope full of money. Success.

Drive back downtown and pay the bill without incident. Success.

Go to the license office and wait in line. Realize after I've gotten to the window that I forgot the inspection certificates in the car, but the counter clerk doesn't actually ask for them. Success. The dykemobile's tags are current!

Attempt to relicense the scooter, whose plates were stolen sometime last year. After much searching, using a couple different keys, she finally finds the record. Plates had expired last year as well as having been stolen. Fail.

Okay, I'll renew it and replate it. I can renew it until April, or I have to come back with a safety inspection if I want to get a full year's plates. Sigh. Further fail.

On leaving City Hall about two o'clock, I call Terry to tell him that my hour's worth of errand has turned into an all day affair and, following up on my email, that the Remote Desktop was fail. He hadn't gotten the email, but told me to just hang it up for the day. Sweet! An afternoon off!