MODoT

So I promised you a story about what went on Tuesday afternoon. Our liscence plates expired while we were living in Indiana. As a "courtesy" (I don't get that at all) Missouri will not send a renewal notice to an out of state address. So as a "courtesy" I forgot to get my plates renewed on time. So I called the MODoT and got them to send me the nesessary paperwork. Except the lady on the phone must have misunderstood when I told her I needed two sets for two cars. I got one set in the mail and started working on getting the plates for the car renewed. They had expired in February 06, it was probably March or April when I was doing all this. The paperwork for the car was not that big of a deal. We had recently gotten the bill for our personal property tax...wouldn't it be "courteous" of them not to send that?!...and paid it and had all the stuff we needed for the car. So about a month later we got the stickers.

In the mean time I finally received the other set of paperwork to get going on the van. The van's plates expired in Dec 05. I sent in everything I had and about a month later got the paperwork back saying it had been REJECTED. We had to pay the personal property tax on the van...for which we had NEVER received a bill. So we put it off and put it off some more. When we got back to St. Louis we went to the liscence bureau to get a waiver for the van. We drove 25 minutes to go to this place to find out that we needed to go to a different office and pay the personal property tax. PERSONAL PROPERTY TAX STINKS!

Side note: if you ever come to St. Louis, please go to the zoo...I already paid your admission in my personal property tax so it's free for you! So visit and visit often. You can send me the thank you note later!

So Tuesday we went to get the state inspection on the van and car so that we could then get the sticker for the van. The van didn't pass the inspection and what would have been a $12 inspection turned into a $200 fix of the rear breaks in order to pass the inspection. Ugh! The car passed with an A+...at least one of our vehicles is good to us. Then we go to the liscence office... which we found right across from the inspection place and they tell us we need an emissions test. The testing place is clear across town, so we drive there in order to get everything done on Tuesday. We wait in line and of course picked the really slow line. We waited in our line while 4 other cars got through in the other line...go figure. But the van passed with flying colors...and only cost us $24 to get the test done that took all of five minutes once we got in. (please note the sarcasm)

We went back to the liscence place and finally got the stickers for the van. The good news? We were able to get two year stickers which puts us at December 07 and hopefully we won't be living in Missouri simply because I don't want to deal with their DMV anymore. We'll just have to get the car reregistered next February! So that's our ordeal with MODoT. In Wisconsin it was SO much easier. Oh and I'm not the only one having these problems Tom and Tami are dealing with all of this too...frustrating.