Mush for brains

So you all know I work a day job, right? One with intense deadlines that takes over my life this time of year? Now, let's take a Category 5 Hurricane deadline in March, add in a bunch of personal *stuff* that doesn't normally crop up this time of year and a bunch of cranky worker bees. No, life is not fun right about now.

Not going to go into all the "oh, woe is me," moments, but I AM going to share with you that moment I tried to take the easy way out/shortcut and things only got worse.

My driver's license is expiring this year. I live in Illinois. They are starting to make their licenses security compliant, and we have another year and a half to do that, but since I'm up for renewal, hey! why not now? Dear husband did his last year. Easy peasy, right?

I work about 2 miles (it might be more, but definitely less than 5) from the DMV. So I packed up all the things my honey told me I needed (rather than reading the information packet by myself, because when I started to he said "oh, you don't need that. Your passport will work..."). Marched inside, handed over my documents, and I needed "that." Or, as an alternative, another document would do. So I went back to the office and printed off the alternate document. Drive back to the facility. Great. Except one of these proof of address documents isn't acceptable. Do you have another one? *grumbling now. I've already made a second trip.* I ask if I can pull up the one they want on my phone. Nope, they need a printed copy that they can scan. So back to the office I go to print out what I HAD prepared, but didn't bring with.

I started out at the DMV at 8:30 am. After three trips, I sat in the waiting room at 10:30 waiting for them to call my number to check out. Did I mention I bumped into some poor woman walking with a cane? We were in the same lane, walking opposite directions. I stepped aside to let her pass, but when I turned to go, guess what? She was still there. I was SO embarrassed. Red faced. Apologizing profusely. I mean how rude am I really? Not my best day.

Oh, one more thing. The guy sitting next to the man helping me told John, the guy helping me, he'd done something wrong. So the two of them went back and forth for five minutes discussing how he'd arrived at the one input screen, only to find out John had done it right in the first place, so why are you bothering him?? For what it's worth, the people at the DMV were friendly and helpful to the extent they could be. It's not their fault I had to make three trips. Well, not entirely.

Moral of the story: Do your own homework and don't take someone else's word for it. Who knows what my honey presented to get his ID last year, but it clearly wasn't correct this year. Or he neglected to tell me something. But he got his, so I trusted his word. I should have read the pamphlet, but I gotta tell you, with the craziness that accompanies the day job and the whirlwind of things going on in addition to that? My brains are mush. I'm not normally that stupid. Really.

Am I?

Did you ever kick yourself and say "I should have known better?"