The Newest Addition to Our Family

The baby Buick is dead!

R.I.P.

It has been a trusted little friend that got us around a lot of places the last 5 years.

We have been looking around at used cars to replace the Buick so we can have a second car when Clark gets going busy with school again. We found the Chrysler Sebring at an auction in Kansas City. In a very exciting bidding war I won the thing...

(If you look carefully you can see Ethan driving the car).

So Monday we left on the 3 hour journey to go pick up our car. We found the place, saw the car, and were relieved that it really did run. I took Ethan with me to the DMV in the quaint historic Strawberry Hill district to pick up some temporary tags so we could drive it home. That is when the real fun began.

OH my! Ms. Shirley (the wonderful employee that sits at the information desk and filters people to where they need to go) was not even going to let me talk to anyone because I only had a copy of the title (the original is in the mail). So I got on the phone and Clark talked to the people at the auction to see what we could do. I stood in the line 5 times and Ms. Shirley wouldn't even let me talk to anyone. When she would see me coming she just rolled her eyes and thrust her loose tooth at me (it was pretty sick). My 4th time in line another employee was just walking by the information desk, so I jumped out of line and told her my plight. She said we could get a transit permit but I needed to call Topeka and get permission. I got the number and quickly called Topeka. It was now 4:25, the answering machine at Topeka said they closed at 4:30. I was so FRUSTRATED! Had the lady given me that number the first time I stood in line (45 mins. earlier) we could have taken care of it.

So not really wanting to drive illegally back to Iowa we decided to stay in KC for the night and try again the next morning. Clark went to the DMV early Tues. morning. Ms. Shirley knew who he was before he even opened his mouth - she referred to me as "persistant." I won't tell you what I referred to her as. They tried to give Clark the run around even after he had obtained permission from Topeka - one employee even tried to tell him she made a phone call when he was staring at her and never saw her pick up the phone. Finally...Ms. Shirley let him talk to a manager of a manager and we got our temporary tags.

How come the DMV manages to be so unhelpful, I've dealt with the DMV in a few different states now and it is always the same!?!

We finally made it home Tues. and we are hoping the baby Sebring was worth the trouble.

The coolest part is that our Sebring is the same color as Michael Scott's, we don't have the convertible top though, but still we feel pretty snazzy bombing around Des Moines in such a sweet ride! Muah ha ha!