Full Disclosure

"Dare to be stupid, come on, join the crowd
Dare to be stupid, shout it out loud
Dare to be stupid, I can't hear you
Dare to be stupid, OK, I can hear you now"
--Dare to Be Stupid, Weird Al Yankovic

If I had to single out one pet peeve that clearly demonstrates itself in my life almost every day, it would have to be ineptitude. I can't stand it when people can't do their job, can't use grammar correctly, can't write about youth baseball with more than a six-year-old level of sentence fragment-type expression--you get the idea. So in the interest of full disclosure, I need to relay a story of extreme stupidity on my part, an event which actually may serve to give me a little more patience with others and their mistakes in the future. Probably not, but we'll see...
The tale begins about two months ago on a little street off Pico Boulevard in Century City, adjacent to the 24-Hour Fitness establishment of my choosing. After a typical morning workout and a stop at the Trimana Coffee House (for a turkey-egg white-avocado breakfast b), I returned to my car, only to find a little white piece of paper wedged underneath the driver's-side windshield wiper. Alas, I said to myself, is this a parking violation? But I park here every day at this hour, so how can this be? As I read through the information, I finally came to the reason for the $25 fee: no visible front plates. Quite confused, I circled around to the front of the car, and sure enough--no front plates. Evidently somebody had decided to steal my license plate while I was parked at the gym. Now, I understand that Saturns are pretty high-class vehicles, and that my license plates in particular would be quite valuable in the right hands, but why take just the front one? Why not also jack the back one, you know, the one with the updated registration and the Trans Ocean Volkswagen frame? I've tried to figure out what somebody would have done with a single license plate reading "3JUP816." It's not like I had "ASSMAN" or "3DEL794" (I would probably steal a license plate that said 3DEL-anything) or something desirable, so who knows. At any rate, I was pretty annoyed by this turn of events, and wondered what my next step would be.
Because my job essentially requires me to put real life on hold until the weekend most of the time, I held off any investigation until the following Saturday, at which time I logged onto the DMV web site and tried to find a way to order a new plate. I printed out the form, which said that in order to get new plates, I had to surrender my remaining one to DMV. I didn't like the language of this: I had something stolen from me, and now I have to surrender? Sufficiently miffed, I phoned the DMV helpline and spoke to a representative, who urged me to come into the office, rather than sending away to Sacramento for the replacements. She didn't seem to understand my repeated assertions that my job doesn't let me just leave for a couple hours, so I was going to have to send away. After one final plea from her for an on-location visit (I think she was just digging the sexy voice on this end...yeah), she relented and told me how much I needed to pay for the new plate (she told me it was just one; that I could keep the existing one), then wished me well in my efforts.
So four to six weeks later, a license-plate-sized package arrives from the DMV. It's like getting a basketball for Christmas, though, getting a package, but you already know exactly what's inside--no room for imagination. Again, I left it for the weekend, so I opened it up and much to my surprise, it's a license plate--no wait, here's the surprising part: it doesn't say "3JUP816," which my car and the form I submitted both clearly display. No no, it says "5MZF131," of course. So I've now waited for more than a month, dodging another ticket possibility every morning, and here's the solution to my problem? Geez, these DMV people really know what they're doing. Side note: I put DMV and Post Office people in the same boat: government employees that really aren't qualified to do much else, right? They must have some of the worst job satisfaction rates around (seriously, any job that lends itself to shooting up your old workplace and co-workers at some point in your life has some frustration issues), and they never seem happy to serve you.
Yeah, so now I'm sitting here with two different license plates, annoyed that the lady told me I only had to order one, annoyed that I have no time to visit the DMV (until a dark week) and annoyed that I'm probably going to get another ticket in the meantime. As this dark week approached, I was able to start looking for appointments, because I definitely didn't want to go into any DMV and wait around without an appointment. It's the equivalent of going to the Soup Nazi and not being sure what you want to order. You need to be prepared, or it's gonna get messy. Real messy. (Wow, two Seinfeld references already today. Not sure why.) I check all the local offices, but no appointments are available until the following week, when real life must again be put on hold, so the only one I could find was at the Culver City branch, fortuitous in its proximity to Fox, but annoying because I had planned to be in LC all day for my birthday. Instead, having made said appointment, I decided to put in a few hours and then head to my 10:30 a.m. date with destiny.
Dateline, Culver City: the day of truth has arrived. I've basically been waiting two months for this, though only the last three weeks or so were actually with the license plates in hand, and I'm going to finally settle the problem, clear myself of any future plate-related crimes, and hopefully not have to visit the DMZ--er, DMV--again for several years. I arrived promptly for my 10:30 appointment, complete with a snack (some almonds) and some reading material (the current issue of Men's Health--did you know that you can unleash your abs in just two weeks? Tell me more!), so I wouldn't be too bored or too hungry when the inevitable sit-and-wait period came. I walked up to the info window with my appointment printout and the envelope containing my replacement plate in hand, and proceeded to tell the woman my quandary. I said that I had my front plate stolen, so I ordered a new one, but I got a totally different one in the mail, so now I had two different plates--what was I to do? She tells me, "No, we send you replacements, so you take off the one you had, and put these on." Ma'am, I know what "replacements" are. When something is called a "replacement," it's very clear to me that it's designed to "replace" the old whatever it is. Replacement parts, replacement players, I get it. So I restated my concern. "No, I only got one plate. So now I have two different ones." She looked rather annoyed, and the woman next to her stopped to look at what we were doing, as did the entire line of people behind and to the side of me. The audience of a dozen or so had a great view of what happened next. She motioned toward the envelope and said, "No. We send them out in sets. There's two plates in there." What? A quick check of the envelope revealed the cold, hard truth. I mean, license plates are kinda thin, right? It might be okay, hypothetically, if someone received an envelope of two new license plates, pulled them out, and thought they looked like one, right? They kind of stick together and, um, well...
I definitely had both new plates all along, and had gone to all this trouble to fix a problem that didn't exist. The two women obviously laughed at me, and though she didn't really need to provide a finishing blow, she had to ask, "So will you still be needing your appointment?" Ouch. That cuts deep. I'm already well aware that I'm an idiot, thanks. Your final reminder, basically just for the viewing enjoyment of her friend and the strange Culver City DMV clientele, wasn't appreciated. Though I suppose I was well-deserving, considering my penchant for extreme sarcasm and criticism when someone else displays simiilar idiocy.
I am now the proud owner of TWO new license plates, and I've made the change, so I won't be ticketed for this again. The $25 ticket was a small price to pay, however, in comparison to the ego check that took place on Tuesday. Yeah, happy birthday, Scott.

Unfortunately for my readership, but fortunately for my sanity, it looks like the youth baseball season is nearing its conclusion. Those coaches really helped this whole institution make a quantum leap this season, moving the summaries from mildly amusing to largely unreadable. I can't wait for football season, to see whether or not the Gladiator coaches graduated from the same school of sports journalism: "We ran a lot of plays." "Tyler had a six-yard run (Way to go there, future hall of famer!)" "The Junior Midgets played a good game." Summer just won't be the same...

This weekend is going to contain as much baseball as is humanly possible, from an entire Saturday of Fox games to an evening at Petco Park for the Cubs and Padres, and then a return trip to the ballpark Sunday afternoon for what should be a showdown between two of the best young pitchers in baseball: Jake Peavy and Carlos Zambrano. Can't wait. Full report to come...