Happy Birthday!!!...Now Here's a Bill for 200 Dollars (A Public Service Rant)

Although I sometimes get a bit melancholy by the end of the day, I really do love my birthday. I appreciate that I'm lucky to have lived so long and to have, what is in my opinion, a large number of people in my life who care about me.

'Nuff said.

However, there is something else that occurs in February every year that I do not love. It is the direct result of my birthday being in this, the shortest of all months...

Car registration and inspection.

Ahh yes, it's THAT time again.

Here's what happened...

I live less than three miles away from the Smallborotonville Town Hall. If there weren't a hill and a couple of acres of trees in the way, I'd be able to see it from the Batcave balcony off my bedroom.

The very idea causes me to shudder. This is why.

First off...It's the first day of my small vacation from the Saltmine... I actually slept in until 7:30 am (an almost unheard of late hour, as anyone who knows my habits can testify). When I did get up, I felt absolutely no desire to get dressed.

NONE.

So I chilled for a bit, drank a Red Bull, then a cup of coffee... Posted a blog and played some computer games.

Finally I worked up the gumption to put on a pair of pajama pants and a tanktop. (GO ME!!) Within moments I was pulling on my pirate boots and heading out the door. For just a moment I paused in front of my reflection wondering if I should do something about my hair, (I feared that I resembled an escaped mental patient) but I just couldn't bring myself to care... So I clicked out the door in pajamas, tanktop and high heels, shoving my hair under a white pageboy cap I purchased a few years ago in Paris.

Yes, I was fashion roadkill of monumental proportions.

I failed to care.

Moments later I showed up, right on schedule for the opening of the hall. I intended to pay my debt to the government and leave as soon as was humanly possible.

Once more, as has so often been the case in my life, I made an incorrect assumption and paid dire consequences as a result...Much like in my juvenile arrest for grand theft auto, my youthful marriage, and my attempted take over of Burkina Faso, I was doomed to failure and pain.

First off, there was the mean dragon lady who worked in the Hall. Though I greeted her with a smile and a hearty "Good morning!" She failed to return either the smile or the greeting. Instead she turned a shade of green not found anywhere in nature, grew fangs and horns, and snarled at me, "WE AREN'T OPEN FOR ANOTHER TEN MINUTES!"

Surruptitiously I glanced down at my cell phone. According to the time display, it was exactly 10:15am. The sign outside the hall claimed that the office of registry opened at 10:00.

I said nothing but the dragonlady had seen my covert glance and snarled once more before slamming the window between us and turning away.

My righteous pirate indignation threatened to rise but I pushed it way down deep, smiled, took a step back and prepared to wait the 10 minutes patiently.

Approximately 20 minutes later my feet hurt and the ire was back. Just before my head actually imploded the dragonlady returned. Growling at me once more, she opened the window and said, "Registration?"

I shook my head and laid my paperwork on the counter.

She took one look at it and began to berate me for not having signed the form. She complained that for an entire year I had been driving around illegally without having signed the form and she suggested that in the future I grow a brain and stop being such a pathetic loser. I could feel the blood draining from my face and my hands clenching into fists.

She then added insult to injury by complaining that since I didn't have a pen of my own she'd make the supreme sacrifice and allow me to use one of hers. The smile that completely FAILED to "grace" her features sent my guts into a spasm of anger.

Clutching the pen in my furious hand, I signed the new registration nearly hard enough to send the pen right through the paper.

She then smiled once more and said, "That will be $195.75."

I paid.

I stalked out of the hall, stamping my feet as hard as I could, pretending that I was stamping my boot heels on the faces of public servants everywhere.

When I got outside, I got into my car. That was when I noticed the little yellow slip of paper on my windshield... It was a ticket.

Apparently, I had been in the way of the plow, so the Smallborotonville police gave me a 5 dollar ticket for being in the parking lot for over 20 minutes.

I got back in my car, started the engine, pulled to the road, stopped the engine, put the car in park and proceeded to scream and slam my head against the steering wheel until I felt better.

Happy fricken' birthmonth to me.