BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

The stretch of the “Information Superhighway” that runs through Missouri is riddled with potholes, and I managed to find a really big one. I wasn’t looking for it… Well, not on purpose. I was simply trying to merge into the center lane. Not even the fast lane mind you, just the center lane, and whomp, there it was. I big ol’ information pothole with Missouri State Government written all over it. I don’t know why, but I didn’t even try to put on the brakes. I just kept on going and fell right into the gaping abyss with countless other poor bastards (and bastardettes) who make the Show-Me state their home.

Now, in defense of the “Big MO,” I have to admit that it lived up to its motto. By that I mean it showed me – in spades – why people in other parts of the country think we are a bunch of barefoot cousin marryin’, nose-pickin’, backward idiots who can’t keep up. You see, it seems our very own government is the model upon which this assumption is based, and I hate to say it, but if I was on the outside looking in I would surmise the very same thing.

Allow me to explain…

Those of you who follow my exploits on Facebook are probably already aware that I have been lamenting some issues with renewing my license plates. This should be a relatively easy task, right? Well, sort of. If you’ve read some of my previous blogs you might remember my story about renewing my Driver’s License. In a nutshell, the majority of the licensing offices in our state are actually commodities. By that, I mean they are privately owned and the permit to own and run one of these establishments was obtained by back-scratching a political candidate. Fair enough. Corruption runs rampant everywhere, why not here? The thing is, these privately owned offices tend to employ some of the rudest people on the planet. (For more detailed accounting of what I mean see It Ain’t Rocket Science…)

For that very reason, and those outlined in the referenced blog entry, I make it a point to avoid going to the licensing office unless my hair is on fire and no one else is around to help me put it out. But, let’s get back to the latest gargantuan pothole…

Missouri, like many – if not all – other states offers the ability to renew your license plates online. Please make note, I said offers. As I discovered, offering this service and actually providing it are two different things. My journey toward said enlightenment, and the resulting plummet toward the bottom of the abyss, began innocently enough. I received my notice, procured my inspections and personal property tax receipts, then surfed over to the site and attempted to renew my plates. Everything was fine right up until I hit continue. It seems the system was unable to verify the fact that I had paid my 2009 Saint Louis County Personal Property Taxes on my vehicle. (For those of you unfamiliar with such, in Missouri we are taxed on EVERYTHING. Think I’m kidding? Live here for a year and find out.)

I tried again. Then again. I waited a day and tried again. For a week I tried daily to renew my plates, but to no avail as I always received the very same error message.

This is when I discovered, and ultimately fell into, the gaping maw of the pothole from hell. What follows here are the email exchanges I had with both the Sate of Missouri and the Assessor’s Office for Saint Louis County. Per the notices on the bottom of their emails I am technically violating some obscure law by making these transcripts public. I guess we’ll see if SWAT surrounds my house and starts tossing teargas through the windows.

(Rather than retype the messages here I am simply providing the images – click on each to enlarge…)

My Email To The County Assessor

The Assessor’s Reply

Me Email To The State

The State’s Reply

My Reply To The State

The State’s Reply To My Reply

My Query To The Assessor Complete With Forwarded Email From The State Attached.

The Final Reply

And there you have it. A pothole the size of Rhode Island, right here in the middle of Missouri’s stretch of the information superhighway. Let’s completely ignore the fact that it is obvious that neither the State nor the County have any clue whatsoever how their own system works. That’s not at all surprising. Instead, simply look at the disparity in the technology.

Using the account number and license plate number – something that you type into the online renewal site – I can pull up my paid personal property tax receipt on the screen. 2 seconds, all done. HOWEVER, it appears that the State is incapable of doing so. Apparently they have to have a CD-ROM sent to them monthly, which then must be copied into their database.

I have to wonder exactly how much all that is costing taxpayers…

Just in case the State – or County, for that matter – happens across this blog, I’d like to let them in on a secret. As it happens, I know at least a half dozen kids at my daughter’s elementary school who can write them a few lines of code and redirect the necessary ports on their routers to make this all seamless, instantaneous, and probably even more secure than it is at present. No CD’s necessary. No extra work. Fewer annoyed and frustrated Missourians.

What’s more, they’d probably do it for a pizza and a juice box. Just think of all the money you could save.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to pack a lunch so I can go stand in line all day at the license office. I’d probably better take a handful of Valium too. That way I might be able to refrain from bitch slapping any of the idiots behind the counter…

More to come…

Murv

It took everything I had to keep from spitting spaghetti across the table and all over The Evil Redhead.  Judging from the bemused shock in her eyes and her hand over her own mouth, I am fairly certain the same was true for her. We both glanced quickly at our daughter as she continued to stuff her face, then I pushed away from the table and made a beeline for the telephone…

Of course, as with most of my stories, for this to truly make sense we have to step into the “wayback machine” for a moment to get a bit of background. So, have a seat next to Mister Peabody while Sherman fiddles with the dials and takes us back to a point in time just a scant couple of weeks prior to the “almost spaghetti spewage.”

Kerchunk… bleep… ring… ring… bloop… blorp… kerchunk… kerchunk…

Okay, here we are… Not only have we traveled back in time, but we have also shifted westward better than two-hundred miles to a suburb of Kansas City Missouri. The townhome (at the time) of my friend – and E Kay’s occasional doormat – Duane.

You see, the near spaghetti spewage is all Duane’s fault. And, the fact that it is his fault in this particular instance is 100% true. Just ask him. He will even admit to it without objection. He won’t even scream “Unicorn.” Well, not right away like he normally does.

Allow me to explain…

Her Supreme Evilness, the O-spring, Johnathan, The Chunk Man, and I took ourselves an extended weekend trip out to see Duane. This wasn’t unusual by any stretch. He comes to Saint Louis to see us, we go to KC to see him. However, during this particular visit, Duane – or as he was called by E K for a brief period, “Dammit Duane” – set certain events into motion that culminated in the almost spray of whole wheat fettuccine noodles, along with a lovely Bolognese, all over our dining room.

“How?” you ask.

Simple. Like all of us, Duane receives his share of bizarre email forwards from folks out there. On the particular weekend in question he had received an attachment in the form of a video file. Now, I have to admit that there is no truly delicate way to put this – the file in question involved “adult activities” between a Latex clad Dominatrix and her submissive.  However, the “porn” factor wasn’t the real reason the clip had been forwarded to him. As it turns out, not only was there a high level of “OMG bizarreness” to the  depicted activity itself – which I shall leave up to your individual imaginations – but the German language dialogue also punctuated it with an LOL factor somewhere around a 7 on the “LOL 1 to 10 Scale”. Anyway, to make a long story short, Duane found it so amusing that he insisted on showing it to Johnathan, The Chunk Man, and me. Due to the fact that I was in the middle of cooking, I was unable to watch the whole clip, however, I got the gist of it, as did Johnathan, The Chunk Man, and Duane. And, they got it in spades, for you see, the rest of the weekend the catch phrase between the three of them became this innocuous snippet of dialogue –

“Yah… Das is gud!”

Fast forward back to the summer evening around the dinner table. We had only been eating for a few minutes when the O-Spring, who was all of 5 years old at the time, stopped shoveling the spaghetti into her mouth and announced, “Das is gud!”

(Now, before you go calling Child Protective Services, the kid did NOT see the clip. She merely heard her Uncle Duane, Uncle Johnathan, and Uncle Chunkee running around the whole weekend chuckling and saying, “Das is gud!” about everything…)

Once I managed to swallow my mouthful of pasta without choking, I called Duane. After all, someone had to warn him that E K was already plotting his demise.

Of course, I certainly wasn’t opposed to it being him in trouble instead of me.  In my way of thinking, das is gud…

More to come…

Murv