Victory at Long Last

Wow. The Celtics did it. After the first two playoff rounds, when they were forced into game 7s, I was certain the Lakers would be able to beat them in 5 in the finals. But after a humiliating, demoralizing, emasculating, debilitating, eviscer-- you get the idea-- loss at home, I was so infuriated I wanted to boycott the rest of the series altogether. But tonight, cooler heads prevailed and, as much as I wanted to see my home team win, I was able to put my post-game-5 wrath behind me and just enjoy a much-deserved Boston victory. And let's be honest -- nothing beats watching KG jump up and down one minute, then bawl like a baby the next, and then hit on Michele Tafoya in the midst of his emotional outpouring. Pure entertainment.

Speaking of victory, I'd like to take a moment to revel in a recent personal triumph. For the last five years, I have been engaged in a battle of epic proportions with one of the biggest bureaucratic messes known to man. The first round of Shivnit vs. the Department of Motor Vehicles began in 2003, when I moved to Maryland for a job and decided to take my car, which was registered in California, with me. Upon moving, I had to re-register the car and re-fi the car loan in Maryland. This is where the trouble began. You see, California's Department of Motor Vehicles uses paperless (i.e., electronic) titles, whereas Maryland's Motor Vehicle Association is slightly behind the times. When the MVA never received a title (since there wasn't a paper title to begin with), it seemed my hands were tied, since in California, it was on record that the title -- the paperless title -- had been released. Effectively, the title was lost. For two years, throughout 2003 and 2004, I repeatedly contacted the DMV and the MVA in increasingly futile attempts to track down the title. (At one point, I spoke to someone at DMV who, upon hearing my problem, said, "I don't actually deal with paperwork here. Let me transfer you." He then proceeded to put me on hold for over 30 minutes, while I sat there thinking to myself, "What do you mean you don't do paperwork?! You're at the freaking DMV! You are paperwork!")

Anyway, fast-forward to 2005. After two years in Maryland, I got homesick and decided to move back to California, bringing my beloved car with me. At that point, I was somehow able to re-register the car in California without proof of ownership (the title was still missing), but as luck would have it, a clerical error resulted in my '99 Accord being classified as a $78,000 vehicle. (The person at DMV accidentally hit an extra digit on her number pad.) So for the years 2005, 2006, and 2007, the registration fees for the car were about four times more than what they should have been. After the first year, I realized what had happened, but in order to correct the car value and reclassify the vehicle, I was told that I would need to bring in the title. Riiiiight.

Over the last three years, through multiple fruitless visits to the DMV, I have talked to countless paper-pushers who have all said the same thing: You need to have the MVA send us a duplicate title. (But how do they release a duplicate if they never received the original?) Well, then you need to contact your financial institution and have them send the title to MVA. (But my financial institution doesn't have the title.) Then you need to contact the MVA. (So wait... what?)

At long last, in the final round of Shivnit vs. DMV, I have achieved victory and knocked out the big beastly bureaucracy that has been the bane of my existence for half a decade. After persisting for so long, I found someone at DMV today who was competent enough to hear my case, have me fill out a "missing title" form, go back to old (very old) DMV records to verify that the car was purchased in California, issue a duplicate title, and adjust my car's value on record -- all in one DMV trip!

The point of the story? After many years of frustration, the Celtics aren't the only ones celebrating victory tonight!