Having spent the majority of my adult years in the military and not having to worry about licensing…read moreor titling vehicles no matter where or how many times I moved around the country, I suddenly realized when I finally settled in St Louis how lucky I had been.
This week I had two encounters with the City's Assessor's Office/Collector of Revenue downtown at City Hall.
No matter what you have to do over there, it seems they always yell at you and refer you to "Room 115" which is where the 25 employees with piss poor customer service skills sit around doing nothing all day doing who knows what but sure do get bent out of shape when you come in and take a number. This office is where you get your "Tax Waiver" which states that despite the fact that you've been paying personal property taxes to the city for years, you had no tax liability last year so now you can get whatever you want done and pay more money. I swear these sour-pussed "helpers" are there as gatekeepers to test your resolve before you enter a lower circle of hell. If you can't deal with their ire, run away!
Next, you either go to the office with a bunch of bank teller like windows where the people are smiling and nice until you get up to their window and they tell you what a jacktard you are and that you need to go to "Room 110" (I may have my room numbers mixed up, but if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about).
So I finally get to the correct room and luckily, despite the crowd, my number is called in short order. The sour-puss at this window gives me the whole "whadda you want?" glare and I present my forms to transfer title. I have a huge tax check, my old registration, title, bill of sale, driver's license, proof of insurance, tax waiver, safety inspection and emissions test from last July. Surely, I'm good to go, right?
Wrong! Where is your new emissions test? I didn't know...I just got a 2 year plate last year and my current test is not expired... WRONG! WHAT THE $%^&#$^%$% ARE YOU THINKING? GET OUT OF MY LINE!!! COME BACK WHEN YOU'VE PULLED YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR NETHER REGION!!!
Holy crap! I've had my ass chewed a time or three in my life, but these brutes really know how to foul up a brother's day.
So, shit, I fire back at this customer service specialist. Look Lady, I don't know who pissed in your Wheaties today (I like that one) but I am on a clock to get my sales tax paid to the state so I can get my new title to the bank (I purchased a lease) and at the very least let me pay my sales tax and get my title work started. "Well...I could do that, but if I do you will be driving on an bad registration because the title will not be in your name or the banks..." Yeah...well if I get pulled over between the time I get my emissions checked and get back here, I guess I'll deal with it.
So, little miss can't be wrong takes my check, issues me a receipt and hands me back my paperwork...or at least most of it.
I find out the next afternoon after I made it to Midas and got my emissions tested, that biatch had kept my "Tax Waiver" and that I would have to go back to "Room 115" and get a new one.
Listen up!!!!! I will not go back to Room 115. You see that sour-pussed bitch sitting right over there in that cage? Yes, the one that looks like she just smelled a bowl of warm piss...yes, that one. She took my friggin' Tax Waiver yesterday and didn't give it back! While I glanced over my shoulder for security, she slurks off and has conversation with old sour. She comes back and mumbles something about how they would never hold onto the tax waiver, but in my case, since old sour recognized me from yesterday she vaguely remembers that I had the form then so it is okay to proceed.
So I pay my new extortion to the city/state, get my third set of new plates in 15 months (yes...remember last year when they switched designs?) and get the fuck outta Dodge.
Oh yeah...even year so I couldn't get a 2-year plate. See you fine folks next year...ugh!
But wait...did I really get in and out of there in less than 46 minutes? I must have, because when I got outside my meter still had 3 minutes left on it. It only cost me 80 cents for that 46 minutes. A quarter at City Hall only gets you about 12 minutes. What a rip.