ET's Info-Stew

On Thursday I was going to take off a half-day from work to go to the Colorado DMV with Jenny to get our cars registered and our driver's licenses. Just as we were ready to leave, Jenny realize that she had no idea where her keys were. She hadn't driven in a couple days, and she had been many places since then. We did a thorough house search, asked Liz and Cy if the keys were at their house or in their car, and Jenny called the places she had been, but nobody had found her keys.

The big problem was that we didn't have a spare. We hadn't ever had a spare key. So I called up a Ford dealership and asked about getting a replacement key. It turns out with many modern cars there is a microchip in the key handle, without which the car will not turn on. So giving the make, model, and VIN number is not enough to get the key made because, as I was told, "the car needs to learn the key". So to get a spare key you need to bring the actual vehicle to the dealership. Of course, the only way to do that is to get it towed.

I called a local tow truck company, and he said he could be at our place within 25 minutes. Forty minutes later I gave him a call and he said that he had a problem with his truck, had to turn around, and was now back on his way only 10 minutes away. Of course, it took him another 15 minutes to get there, so we had been waiting for nearly an hour. They showed up not with a tow truck, but with a hefty work truck, like an F-350 or a Durango. He had an attachment on the back that hydrolically lifts two wheels off the ground. It wasn't what I expected, but heck, it did the job.

We got to the dealership and after having paid the tow truck driver ($90) we got signed in to get the keys made. We were told it would be an hour, so we left the dealership and got some lunch. When we came back, close to an hour later, the new keys weren't made. We were told it would be another 20 minutes, but in fact it took 30 minutes. That was another $172.

We were way behind schedule so our plan was to go get the emissions test, go to the DMV to get the cars registered, and wait to get driver's licenses another day. We got to the emissions test place and we each got in a line. Both of us had only two cars in front of us, so I figured it should go fairly quick. I was wrong. Each test takes about 20 minutes. After the test and getting some other paperwork for VIN verification, we were there for over an hour. It cost $80 for both cars.

It was 4:30 pm at this point, so we ran over to the DMV office to get the plates. We got there at 4:45 pm and when we drove up there was a sign on the door saying that the office was closed and that there would be no entry after 4:30 pm. 15 minutes late! If the tow truck, dealership, or emissions tester had done their work within the time expected, we would have made it. We gave up after this disappointing and wasted afternoon, which I had to spend vacation hours on. Now I have to go back some other day.