SOUTHERN EXPOSURE: REMEMBER WHEN OWNING A CAR WAS FUN?

I've just been rear-ended by the License Bureau of Cape Girardeau.

I bought my first Missouri car back in June, just before moving to Cape Girardeau, and therefore have just had my first exposure to the License Bureau.

This car was bought to replace one that caught fire in St. Louis and burned up under me. I'd had that car for five years and I loved it. It was a 1981 Nissan 280ZX with a straight-six cylinder engine, seats that held me as comfortably as my Mother's arms and a suspension that did more than hug the road, it grappled with it.

My Z had been ailing for months before it finally died. I was driving it in to be looked at one last time, but it never made it. I had always thought of giving that car a Viking Funeral, (you know, sending it out into the ocean on a flaming raft. My friends and I wearing horned helmets and drinking dark beer out of rams' horns, while we grunt and howl our farewells.) I guess in a way that's how it went out.

Anyway. Because of my extremely desperate financial situation at the time of my car's demise, I had to settle for replacing it with something less fun. I bought a 1988 Nissan Sentra from a friend of mine for a good price just before I moved down to Cape Girardeau.

Now we're coming to my painful encounters with the License Bureau.

I went to get the car licensed in my name as soon as I was settled in. I had called first, knowing the License Bureau demands a lot from you, and I wanted to get this over with on the first trip. I walked up to the counter with all the necessary paperwork and handed the girl the original title.

She looked at me with a mixture of pity and hungry anticipation. I swear she was smacking her lips and salivating as she explained to me that the title had been signed by the original owner in the wrong place (she pointed this out to me very carefully and slowly). And even though that person had tried to correct her mistake by crossing out her name and writing it in the right spot, the clerk explained she still didn't think the title would be approved (she shook her head sadly as she said this last part).

I tried to tell her that the girl I had purchased the car from had left for Virginia to take a three-month job and would be difficult to get in touch with. The clerk was sympathetic, but steadfast, and I couldn't help noticing that hungry flame ignite behind her eyes again.

Now I know why she was looking at me like that.

I finally got a letter to my friend, and she returned the License Bureau's affidavit, which stated she had in fact signed the title in the wrong spot (as if that wasn't painfully obvious) and she was sorry. The process of tracking her down -- she was working in the woods of Virginia -- and getting a reply took nearly two months.

When I returned to the License Bureau office, another clerk took my information and calmly informed me that I had been lax in getting my car titled. The state of Missouri requires that you title a newly bought car within a month of purchase. There would be a $25-per-month penalty.

I tried to explain the situation. The first clerk ... what she had made me do ... the affidavit ... Virginia! This clerk just smiled calmly and said, "Sorry." That one word means so much more coming from a bureaucrat than it does anyone else. What she was really saying is, "We got you. You HAVE to pay. I'm not really sorry, it's just so much easier to say that word than it is to say all this."

I realize with the number of people licensing cars and the sheer number of drivers the License Bureau has to deal with they have to make one set of rules that apply to everyone. Dealing with problems on an individual basis would require too much work, too much thought and too much trust.

But with gas prices rising faster than a SCUD missile, amorally high insurance costs and repair prices that resemble the national debt, wouldn't it be nice if something about having a car wasn't a gigantic pain?

Remember when owning a car was fun? Makes me want to buy a horse.

~David Angier is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.