In Which We are Terrorized by a Villainous Sheriff Inspector and Kentucky State Law.

It's inevitable, isn't it? Whenever I go on a trip, the preceding week is bound to be crazy.

I sat down to write this post with three closed doors separating me from our handy smoke alarm, throwing its token tantrum because I decided to cook myself a hot meal for lunch. (A pizza sub, to be exact. Delish.) I feel like one of those moms who says, "Sometimes you just have to let 'em cry it out," because I was not in the mood to damage my hearing while fanning the thing off with a broom for several minutes. There was actually something oddly satisfying about saying, "You can beep all you want. I'll be in the office when you're feeling calm enough to behave yourself."

Months ago, when Chad and I got our car insurance, we realized our Camry was not technically ours. My Dad gave it to me over two years ago when I moved to Alabama, but never actually signed the title over or did anything official. The insurance company said we could have 30 days to get the title transferred and the car registered in my name, or we'd have to list my Dad on the policy. Of course, 30 days came and went, and I completely forgot about that little agreement I made with the insurance people.

So now, several months later, I get a letter from them ("We understand your time is valuable, however. . ." Yeah, my time is valuable, but mostly I just forgot.) asking me to fax them a copy of the registration in my name within 15 days. (er, proof that it's registered in my name? ahem. why of course I can send you that...maybe by day 14 if I'm lucky.) Miraculously, the letter came while my parents were in town, so we were able to get our signatures notarized on the application form for KY.

Yesterday, Chad and I went down to the sheriff inspector to get the mandatory inspection done. I wish SO BADLY that I had a picture of this establishment. You'll just have to trust me when I say it was ghetto. It was on the backside of a building, and the door had several (WAY TOO MANY) signs on it, one of which said, "Please only knock once." Chad didn't see it apparently, and knocked several times before I could hiss, "Chad, stop!". When the sheriff lady came to the door, she had the most foul look on her face. I felt like saying, "We're here to see the wizard!" But I didn't. She instructed us to get in line. ("Which line?" we asked, because we felt like we were in the middle of a parking lot with cars everywhere and no visible "line" of cars. "Whichever one's shorter," she said gruffly, and shut the door in our faces.) We found the line though, because we're smart.

Then we waited. Got the documents and our 5 bucks ready. She came and took our stuff, wrote down the mileage, circled around to the front of the car, and then came back to the driver's seat window and handed me my papers and money back. "Can't do it. Windshield's cracked." And without any further explanation, she walked away. What?!

Okay, it was pretty darn cracked, but the crack(s) don't obstruct my line of vision. Which is why I haven't fixed it since it happened two years ago. And we thought maybe she was just a grouchy person, and wondered if we should just try and find a nicer sheriff inspector. But we called around and found out that the state of Kentucky won't allow a car with a cracked windshield to be registered, no matter the shape or size of the damage.

The awesome part of this whole thing is that my insurance covered the windshield repair because of some waiver they have in KY (probably because of all this crazy strictness about not having a broken windshield in this state). So I got it fixed today. Hooray! The not-so-awesome part is that on Friday, Chad gets to go back and visit our sheriff friend again so we can take care of the registration before our trip. Gotta love government bureaucracy!

Oh yeah, 'cause we're leaving Friday. In three days. On vacation. To Philadelphia. And ARUBA. Remember?