Thursday 8/26/2021
The lumber yard has been calling and leaving messages about my delivery. Apparently, half the stuff on the order is unavailable and they may not have it for three weeks – but when they do have it, they will deliver it for free. Every time I call them back, the phone rings, and rings, and rings. The main computer answering message thanks me for shopping there, and asks me where to direct my call. I tell the computer the phone extension the girl left in my phone message and the computer connects me to the extension that just keeps ringing, . . .off the wall.
This morning, Julian – the delivery driver called and I answered. He wanted to verify that I knew that he would not be delivering half the stuff I had ordered. I told him to cancel the order. In order to do that, I would need to call the order desk. I explained to him that they never answer the phone when I call, and when they call back, I have no service – so they leave a message for me to call, which they never answer. He said for me to hold on, and he walked over to the service desk and handed his phone to the girl who has been calling. We cancelled the order.
Alanah is coming to Hawaii this afternoon – This means that I have to take out the single bed and blow up the inflatable bed. And hope it holds air. The single bed is on two pallets – actually it is on four pallets, but it is two pallets high. I need to rearrange these to make it 4 pallets , but one pallet high. The single bed is 3′ wide and 6′ long and the blow up mattress is 6′ wide and 6′ long. This will take up twice the floor space in the shed – it is already crowded in the shed as it is.
I put the single mattress under the shed on top of some lumber that I had stacked there and blew up the queen sized air mattress that I had got from Mom’s house. Then I took off for Kona. It was 11:30. I stopped in at Ocean View and got a bag of ice and put it into the ice chest. I had brought 1/2 a papaya, some smoked sausage, and a small bottle filled with Pepsi. I knew that I would need ice for anything I would buy in Kona like milk, eggs, juice, etc. The trip was uneventful until I got just past Captain Cook. The highway department was repairing a section of the highway and had closed off that one lane to any traffic. they were rerouting all traffic to the other lane by alternating turns for cars headded in opposite directions. they had flagmen to stop the cars from one direction as the cars from the other direction proceeded past. then they switched. This took about 15 minutes to get past. Then, about a mile further on, they were doing the same thing to trim trees on one side of the road. this one only took 5 minutes to get through.
When I got to the airport, Alanah had been there for about an hour. Her plane had arrived early and I was late. We ate the papaya. I had already drank the Pepsi.
We went to the Hawaii Motor Vehicle Department to get a copy of the current registration for the car. When I took the car to the repair shop for the annual safety inspection, I could not find the current registration. The information in the MVD computer system verified that it was current, but I did not have the little piece of paper. Everything else passed, but I failed because I did not have that little piece of paper.
So, I show up at the Hawaii MVD office and there is a table outside the office with a girl who checks your paperwork and only lets a limited number of people into the office at a time – a sort of a gatekeeper. A bad omen to start with because I am not the Keymaster!! Anyway, she listened to my story of what I needed and asked, “Do you have an appointment?”
I answered, “No.”
She frowned and said, “You are supposed to make an appointment!” Then she told me that she would put me on the “naughty list” (she did not call it that) and I could wait and maybe they could get me in today.
“Those who made an appointment have 1st priority.” she explains. “”After they have been seen or if there is time in between, then we will go to the wait list”. As an after thought, she adds, “This is to stop Covid.”
Everyone who shows up, has to eventually get in. It is not like you can go anywhere else to get your car registration, or your driver’s license. This is the only place. They have to see me eventually. I was unaware that you could stop covid by making an appointment!
They believe that by keeping everyone outside, they are keeping their employees “safe” – except for the one girl stationed outside. I guess she is the sacrificial lamb. Or like the have on Star Trek, the “expendable crewmember”. Rather than have one of the regular cast get killed by an alien, they have an unknown crewmember that takes the fall.
So, she is explaining to me why it was that she needed to do her job of keeping the rifraff like me – people who don’t make appointments – out of the office, so that everyone else is safe, and I said, “Look, I don’t even need to go in.”
She looked at me with a strange look as if to say, “Then why are you even here?” and I continued, “All I need is for someone to type the VIN number of my car into their computer and print out the current registration.” And I added, “It will take less than five minutes.”
“Oh, we don’t do that here!”
Maybe I was at the wrong place. Maybe I should be at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Restaurant down on the waterfront, or maybe at the ABC Store. Maybe I could get my car registration at Kona Boys Kayak Rentals. She must have been reading my mind, because she added, “Well, we don’t do it that way. It isn’t that simple.”
Then she started to explain that they have an automated kiosk at Safeway where people can renew their car registration, but I could not use that because I do not have all my paperwork. She must have tumbled to the fact that this was just my point. I do not have the paperwork, and that is why I am here . . . to get the paperwork at the only place where the paperwork is available. Then she said, ” Rather than waiting, you could just write a note detailing what you need and drop it in the dropbox around the corner along with a check for $5.” I wanted to ask her if an Italian, or a Greek, or maybe a Canadian or a Mexican, would be just as good as a Czeck, but I thought I was pushing my luck just being there “without an appointment!”
I explained to her that I do not use checks any more. We live in a digital world now where all my banking is done online and with plastic cards. “Well, you can wait, but I don’t know if we will be able to fit you in.”
I looked around and there was one woman waiting at a picnic table, a woman with a young child at a bench off to the side, and one man on another bench behind me. While she was explaining this to me, three different employees had come outside to see if there were any customers that they could help. She shooed them all back inside each time they came out.
Then she called the woman with the little boy to go in – I guess she had an appointment. Then another young guy came up and told her why he was here and she went into the whole appointment thing. He looked around with a helpless look on his face and walked around in circles as he left. Probably to go to his computer and make an appointment. Another couple came up to her and she was very happy! They had an appointment! Two women came out – one was putting her new driver’s license into her purse. The “gatekeeper” went inside to make sure the coast was clear, before allowing this couple with the appointment to go in. While she was inside, another “customer” came out and left. Right after she let the couple in, another “customer” came out and left. The woman at the picnic table opposite us, went up to ask her if she could go in now, as there were three people who came out. The gatekeeper, replied, “In a minute”. The woman came back to the picnic table and confided to us that she also had just showed up “without an appointment”. The gatekeeper lifted up the clipboard with the “naughty list” on it and looked at it rather intently. Then she called the woman at the picnic table’s name and told her to go in. As she was going in, she looked back at us and smiled.
No sooner had the door closed, when it opened and two employees came out and had a rather lenghty discussion with the gatekeeper, who showed them her appointment list and then the naughty list. The two employees went back inside. The woman with the little boy came out and left. The gatekeeper called in the man sitting alone behind us. He went in and another customer came out. A few minutes passed and the woman who had been sitting at the picnic tablrecame out and she smiled and noddedmher head as if to say, “You’re next” The gatekeeper called my name and told me I could go in. “Once I get inside, where do I go then?” I asked.
“Go to window 16.” It was 1:46 PM
Inside, each “window” is encased in a makeshift tent made of plastic visquine. Each one also had a plexiglass shield in front of it. I sat down in a chair in front of the plexiglass and leaned over to the side to talk to the clerk around the plastic barrier. I handed her my “failed” inspection report and told her that I needed a copy of my current registration. She asked for identification. I gave her my driver’s license. She swiveled over to her computer and began entering information. Then she hit print.
She handed me a sheet of paper with a box printed on it with sections in the box. In different sections was my name, my address in Naalehu, the vin number of the car, a heading that said Hawaii MVD, and a signature line at the bottom with the words above this line that said something to the effect that I agree to pay $5.00 for a copy from MVD.
I signed her form and gave her a five dollar bill.
She went back to her computer, and hit a few keystrokes. Then she went to her printer and retrieved for me a copy of my current registration, which she handed to me along with my driver’s license and my failed safety inspection and asked, “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”
I told her no, and thanked her. Then I got up and left. It was 1:49 PM and as it turns out, they DO do that here!
To be continued . . .
TTFN
TropicalCastaway 