January 24, 2006: Day of Infamy

This is the story of the first time in my life that I can remember my procrastination finally catching up with me. It all started in July when I purchased my new car. I traded in my old truck and the dealership gave me the plates and a title transfer and told me to bring it to the DMV. I didn't. I was always going to do it next week and then one day the bag the plates are in slipped under the driver's seat of the car and, well, out of sight=out of mind and that was that.

End of November I get a notice from the DMV that since insurance has been cancelled on my truck I am going to either have to pay a fine of $200 or send in proof of title transfer and a receipt for returning the plates. I was in the middle of end of term papers and then finals so I figured I'd do it in a few weeks when things settled down.

A few weeks go by and it's the week before Christmas. I pull out the notice and discover that I had a 20 day deadline which has now passed. So I figure, well since the deadline has already passed, I might as well just wait until next week after all the Christmas excitement is over. So I put it away for another week. (Also in fairness, friends such as Whitney and Eli told me to just take care of it before Christmas. They told me so!)

Week after Christmas and I get a new notice in the mail. My registration is officially being suspended and there are two ways to avoid it: Pay the $200 fine or schedule a hearing. Then. Then I lost this notice which had the phone number to schedule the hearing and every few days I would decide to do a cursory search for it, until last night I finally tore my place apart and discovered that it had officially vanished. So today I buckled down and searched for the appropriate phone number.

When I called I discovered that procrasinating on turning in your old plates is akin to murder. I'm not sure why they haven't come to cart me away yet because I have committed a sin, I tell you. I am not allowed a hearing. Hearings are not for the likes of such evil-doers as me. The DMV hates me!

So now my procrastination has cost me $200. I suck. In all my life it never caught up with me; I was even voted class excuse-maker in high school. But today will live in infamy as the day Tina was finally punished for her procrastination.