- smog: a portmanteau of "smoke" and "fog," referring to aerosol pollutants (industrial waste, car exhaust, and so on) mixing with airborne water droplets (like fog) to form a filmy, unhealthy haze.
- smogging: in certain states like California, drivers are required by law to have their car "smogged"; that is, tested to ensure that they are keeping noxious exhaust emissions low, which in turn ensures that smog levels are minimized. Before a car can be registered, it must be smogged.
- title: in reference to automobiles, this is a legal certificate of ownership issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles. Also known as a "pink slip."
- license: everybody knows what this is, but I thought I'd mention it here just to make this list longer. This is the little piece of plastic, obtained after you complete your driver's test, that says you're allowed to drive a certain class of vehicle. It has your picture, your birthday, and some other miscellaneous crap on it.
- registration: bureaucracy these days being what it is, it's no longer enough to simply own a vehicle. You now must register it with your state of residence. You tell them you have a car and they issue you with license plates that you bolt onto said car. Makes it easier for the cops to identify you, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
- registration stickers: as if registering a vehicle wasn't enough, the registration expires after a few years. So you have to occasionally renew your registration. These stickers, applied directly to your license plates, keep track of your registration currency.
I'm writing this because I went in to get a smog check today, in preparation for obtaining registration for my 1995 Jeep Cherokee, and thereby being able to drive my car in California legally. I just got back. It took almost seven hours. That's Southern California for you.
First, I got up at 7:00 a.m. to get to A-Action Automotive (the ones who did the checkup on the Jeep right before I purchased it) by eight. I did, and got it inspected. At nine, owner Steve Coultas came out to give me the verdict. The Jeep barely passed the smog check, but it failed on the fuel system evaluation. There was a leak in the fuel system somewhere. The smog check had already cost me $60, but I went ahead and approved the $80 fuel system inspection. That took a further hour or two. I went down to Starbucks on the corner of Hesperia Road and Bear Valley and had some passion fruit lemonade tea (for $2.80), then went across the street to Walgreen's and read some magazines: guns, video games, even the latest issue of Time. It was the "brain" issue, all about the human brain and its vagaries.
Somewhere between 10:30 and 11:00 I returned to the shop and heard the new verdict: both the filler hose and the vent hose, connected to the fuel tank, were leaking. To repair it, the custom bumper on the Jeep and the fuel tank would both have to be "dropped" (unscrewed, lowered and removed). Total repairs, including parts and labor, came to just over $450. The day had already been going badly before I heard this. I'd ripped my pants on the rabbit-wire on my way out of the backyard gate, and I'd had to get up early. Now I was going to spend two weeks' pay on these repairs. Not that I would've cared, mind you. But compounded with the rest of what happened today...well, read on.
So I went ahead and approved this latest round of repairs, too. Steve checked and told me that his shop had the hoses in stock, so they wouldn't need to be ordered. Good, because it meant the Jeep could be repaired that same day. And I needed to have it repaired as soon as possible. On Monday I'd be getting up early again to head up to Barstow and the office of the Department of Motor Vehicles to get the Jeep registered. Steve printed me out an cost estimate and told me the Jeep should be finished by this afternoon. (I'd just like to point out here that, despite how it sounds, I'm not blaming A-Action Automotive or any of its employees for this. I understand that parts and labor cost a lot. I'm just deploring the fact that I have to spend that much money on repairs. I'm not complaining that A-Action is charging me that much for them. They run a splendid repair shop and I'd recommend them to anybody. This was just some bad news on top of a soon-to-be stinky day...but read on.)
My dad had called me earlier and told me he and Mom were coming into town to go shopping. Once he heard that the Jeep was going in for new repairs, Dad said he'd pick me up and we'd all go together while the repairs were going on. I plunked myself down on the sidewalk outside the repair shop and awaited their coming, shaded from the blasphemous sun by the A-Action sign out front. Mom and Dad came shortly before noon, and we headed off: first to try to find a mattress store in Oak Hills (which we didn't; it wasn't even there) and then to Tom's Burgers to get lunch (yum!).
Then (this was about 1:00) we went back to A-Action. The Jeep was sitting outside in the parking lot...a good sign? Perhaps it was finished already. I went into the small front office. Steve said that the parts that they'd thought they had weren't correct; the hoses were intended for a Jeep Wrangler, not a Jeep Cherokee. He'd order up the parts and I could bring the Jeep back in on Monday to have it repaired. Awesome.
Fortunately I didn't have to pay anything right then and there. Steve nicely said, "We'll square up when you come in on Monday." I walked out of the office feeling slightly let down. Five hours and nothing had been fixed, only diagnosed. The Jeep hadn't even passed its smog check thanks to those blasted leaks in the fuel system (which the DMV would never let pass). I'd have to get it re-checked on Monday after repairs were concluded. Damn it and blast it.
Thereafter, Mom, Dad, and I stopped by Harbor Freight (a hardware store) to get some more stuff for my emergency automotive kit: a hydraulic jack and a towing cable, replete with large steel hooks (cool!). Then we split up. Mom and Dad went home, and I went to Eagle Motors, the car dealership where I'd originally bought the Jeep (I should just think up a name for the Jeep so I wouldn't have to keep blandly referring to it as "the Jeep," shouldn't I?). I had an errand in mind. I didn't have a title for the Jeep. I had a lot of other paperwork that had been given to me when I'd bought the car, but no title. I didn't know why. Normally they give you the title when you buy the car. But I didn't have it. So I went in to get it. Carl was still there, his wrinkled, spotty, sandal-clad foot resting on the desktop. I told him, politely, that I hadn't received a title. After leafing slowly through the paperwork I set before him and clicking around on the computer for a couple minutes (whistling tunelessly over the blaring television), he pronounced that, as far as he knew, my title was still being processed by the DMV. They'd mail it to me when they were finished. I asked how long he thought it'd be. He said he didn't know. He told me to give him a call about 2:30 (it was about 1:45 right then), when Sal, the owner, would come back and dig up the paperwork.
I sighed, thanked him, and left. I got some gas. I drove almost all the way home, then pulled over and called Eagle Motors precisely at 2:30. Carl said that he'd confirmed with Sal that Eagle Motors didn't have the Jeep's title. The DMV was working on it, and would mail it to me. However, the reason I hadn't received my registration paperwork is that Eagle Motors had mailed it to me, but it had returned undeliverable. I almost banged my head against my steering wheel when I heard this. I'd given them my street address instead of my mailing address. We don't receive mail at our street address. I quoted him the mailing address and requested (biting back my self-disgust) that he send my registration paperwork to me again.
I should explain here, now, that the reason I haven't received my title is because I haven't registered my vehicle with the state, and the reason that I haven't registered my vehicle with the state is because I don't have any registration paperwork, and the reason I don't have any registration paperwork is because I gave Eagle Motors my physical address instead of my mailing address that day long ago when I bought the car. So in the meantime, my parents and I have been wondering and worrying and wailing about how my registration paperwork hasn't shown up yet and how I don't yet have my car registered with the state and in the meantime the fuzz could pull me over and ticket me for driving around without registration. Sheesh.
After getting home at a quarter to three, having left the house precisely seven hours earlier, I collapsed onto my bed and considered going into hibernation ahead of schedule. An entire day shot. Blown. Down the drain. As if being informed that I'd be shelling out $450 on car repairs wasn't enough, I had then been notified that I'd made a stupid mistake, and had been wondering and wailing and waiting for absolutely nothing this entire time. And it took seven hours and an unholy amount of driving around in triple-digit heat to figure it all out.
This is how you register a car in Southern California. Phase One, anyway.
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