Texas plates and Utah licenses...

In August we registered both of our cars and received Texas plates. Our insurance has been changed (although that was a huge fiasco and I'm STILL not sure our new agent handled correctly - that's a whole other post) to Texas insurance. It's quite a bit more expensive than I'm used to in Utah. To insure 2 cars here it is about the same price as insuring the same 2 cars, a house, and jewelry in Utah. The next thing on the list is to get our Texas state drivers licenses. 

My problem is that I can rarely leave my school much before 5:00 p.m. and the DMV's all close at that time. Last week Ken and I decided to meet at the DMV to get our new licenses. I left work right at 3:30 p.m. and headed to the drivers license place. Ken arrived about an hour before I did and had both of our call up numbers and application paperwork ready to go.

When I arrived I was informed that my Utah drivers license didn't count as a valid form of ID. What?! I had my Social Security card in my married name and my passport in my maiden name (which I knew would be an issue).  Long story short, Ken went home to get our marriage license (somehow we brought it with us) so I could have my ID verified. Fun fact... a marriage license 'trumps' all other forms of ID making my passport okay. I sat and waited while Ken was gone, hoping that our numbers weren't called before he returned. 

There were A LOT of people waiting at the DMV that day.

There weren't many numbers being called up to the counters. Things were moving really slowly. Ken had been gone about a half hour and only two numbers had been called.

No one could really figure out why things were moving so slowly. This woman (yes, it is a girl) in the plaid shirt kept causing the biggest racket. She, and a bunch of other people, had been there waiting for over 3 hours. It was getting close to 5:00 p.m. and she was super antsy (and vocal) about getting helped before they closed. Understandable.

This unfortunate government employee came out and told everyone that the system was no longer working and that we would all have to leave and come back another time. People were mad! I can't blame them. I'd only been there about an hour and Ken was into the whole process about 2 hours. There were people that had been there for a long time. I felt the worst for the elderly people that had waited 3+ hours and had to leave.

Without much of a choice, people left.

Ken still wasn't back. I didn't get up and leave. Don't worry... security came and asked me to leave. Ha ha! I had a few 'words' with the lady running the show. I completely understood that she had no control over the computer program there but I thought she handled it poorly. As for everyone that had to wait for a long time, their numbers were now void and they'd have to wait all over again on another day.

The red car is mine. Everyone else is gone. What a waste of time!

We'll try it again another day. We learned that one of the DMV's in Fort Worth is much bigger and has a lot of counters going at the same time. I think I'm going to try out that one. What a pain!