None of it is right. None of it. The DMV VIN inspection lady said. You needed to do a million things differently than you did. So we’re just screwed? I asked her. Pretty much, yes. She said.
Well, that’s basically what she said anyway. But she said I could get a movement permit for the horse trailer so I could at least be driving it around legally until the title was fixed, so I met up with Sophie, who’d been waiting in line outside the DMV since 6:15 am.
Sorry, said the other DMV worker people when we got to the front of the line. You needed to also do these million things differently than you did. This isn’t going to work. No movement permit for you. Go talk to the VIN inspection lady again.
Well, that’s basically what they said, too, anyway. By then it was 8:30.
So then the VIN inspection lady wasn’t doing anything, so she walked us around our trailer and told us all the everythings. Add three more lights here. Take this welded plate off to see if there’s a VIN under there. You’ll have to stick weld it on later after you bring it back for inspection. If there isn’t a VIN, we can assign one. But you don’t have a title, so you need to apply for a bonded title, which takes months and you have to put up money for three years in case anyone comes forward to say it’s stolen. Also, you need to go get a weight on it from the Alamo truck scales off Vista and I-80. If it comes in over 1500 pounds, you’ll need brakes on all four wheels. You can’t get a movement permit until all of this is done and you have the bonded title.
So, we just have to drive this around illegally to do all this since we can’t get a movement permit?
Yes unless you trailer it. But you can explain it to a cop if you get pulled over and hope for the best.
Why the Fuck Couldn’t She Have Told Us That In The First Place. Sophie Later Fumed. If we hadn’t gone back to talk to her again, we would’ve wasted so much more time!
So we took it to Alamo and it was too light for their truck scales. They had us pull through three times while they figured out some math. The first time the trailer weighed 1700, then 1680, then 1660. I said if we pulled through 8 more times, we’d be at 1500 and I wouldn’t need brakes on it anymore. They said no. Three was enough.
So I took the trailer back to Big Tex Trailers again and told them about the welded plate removal and the brakes and the three lights that needed to be added.
What did you do at the DMV? Why does the VIN inspection lady hate you so much? They asked.
I just thought I was a regular old regular old, but apparently I’m an exception. And we have to have the trailer able to move goats by Friday for our first test run in the wilderness this weekend.
Dejected, I went back to Mom’s. And she decided to just buy a different trailer.
We emailed one lady but she emailed back that someone was looking at her trailer already. So the next cheapest and closest was in Bishop. We reached out and told him we’d be there in the morning to buy it. Cool, Scott said. See you at 11.
I stayed at Mom’s and she washed my clothes, like Moms do, and let me wear her pajamas since I hadn’t planned on staying over. And we got up super early and started to drive-drive-drive-drive all the way to Bishop. And Big Tex called and said they couldn’t put brakes on the old trailer anyway because of something about the axle and I forgot to listen to the rest because everything was super fucked up and also being miraculously fixed all at the same time. So I told them just to leave it as is and I’d come get it later.
So Mom and I told stories and talked about Dad a lot and how much we missed him. And Grandpa too. And I threw in some little nuggs about not missing Grandma. We talked about the past and the beautiful scenery and the mountains and more about Dad. The sun was shining all over the place and the Earth looked brand new, wearing it’s Spring colors. The blue lakes were the twinkly kind of blue, and the creeks were raging and muddy. And all was right with the world.
Three hours of driving later, we arrived. Bishop was as nice as ever, save the gas prices, and we had the trailer and the CA DMV paperwork in no time. Scott lied to us a little bit since he didn’t actually have the title, which was a little shitty since he’s a probation officer and should’ve been more honest, but he gave us paperwork for a lost/transfer title and it was too late and too beautiful a day to be too pissed off about it. Whatever. It was a trailer, and it worked, and it met code. And I could legally drive my Sweet Little Herd around in it on Friday.
I called the vet on the way home, and they had Bosco’s name down as Bode in their records. I don’t know how they named my goat after my dog since my dog goes to a different vet, but I needed the correct paperwork. Do you, really? She wanted to know…does it matter that much that his name is wrong?
YES.
Yes, I actually want them to do their job and write the correct name of my animals down in their records and give me paperwork for my records that has the correct names of my animals. Right? WTF am I paying for? I thought.
Yes please. I said. So she said she would, and then we went drive-drive-drive-drive all the way back to Mom’s.
Dropped off the new trailer. Went and picked up the first trailer from Big Tex, drove it across the valley and back to Mom’s. Hooked up the new trailer again, put new light bulbs in the spots that needed them, except…then the lights still didn’t work. On the new trailer.
We called a million places and finally a mobile RV repair guy came to help, and the first thing he did was blow a fuse on my truck and couldn’t figure out which fuse it was for an hour.
Shit. He said.
What does ‘Shit’ mean. I said.
Shit means… ‘Shit’. He said.
Not totally what you want to hear at this point in the competition. But he did sort it out by 8pm and he helped me rob some newer parts off the first trailer and switch them out to put on this trailer, and then all the lights on the trailer worked and I had new hooks, and I had all my paperwork, and Christina was even lined up to go with me to the DMV again in the morning with a new trailer and face the VIN Inspection Lady Who Hates Me For No Reason.
I got home around 9:15 pm and listened to the buzzing in my head from all the activities of the day and felt the buzzing in my fingertips from the Monster energy drink, and it still only took me a minute and half to go –
Straight To Sleep.