I look back fondly on last year when it only took me three trips to the Missouri DMV to get our license plates. Last years trips were a mix of my fault for not knowing exactly what I needed and the DMV’s for just being confusing. This year is a different story. I went to the DMV this morning for the third time in as many weeks and left fuming mad. I don’t know if I have ever been so mad before in my life.

The story begins with us not having our title to our WRX since we still are making payments on the loan. The story gets confusing when I started to try and track down our title. I called Chase Manhattan (our lien holder) and inquired about our title. I don’t remember much of our conversation, but I do remember that the representative ended by saying that he was going to have Missouri send our title to us and then we could take it to the Oregon DMV. We even got a letter from Chase saying the title from Missouri should arrive any day. It didn’t. So I called the Missouri Department of Revenue and found out that they didn’t even have our title. It was still on request from the state of Kansas. So, our title is still in Kansas, no big deal, I will just call Kansas and see what I need to do to get the title to Oregon. The process to get the title to Oregon is almost too easy, but this is where I get mad.

Quick back story: When I got our plates in Missouri I only registered them for the year instead of two, since I thought there was a good chance we would be moving. Our plates expired on September 1st. Since we wouldn’t get our Oregon plates in time, we had to apply for a trip permit. They cost $20 and last for 21 days. The catch is that you can only get two. We are on the second day of our second trip permit. Time is now of the essence.

So, after talking to the Kansas DOR, I downloaded the form, filled out my part and took it to the Oregon DMV so they could fill out their part. Their part consisted of giving me the address of where they wanted the title sent. After explaining what I needed and being told ‘that isn’t how things are done here in Oregon’ I finally convinced the lady that actually is how things are done when getting a title from Kansas. Round one: Travis. Round two: Oregon DMV.

When on the phone with the Kansas DOR lady, she told me the fastest way to get the form back to them fully completed would be to fill out my part, have the Oregon DMV fill out their part, fax the form to Chase (my lien holder), and Chase would fax the form to Kansas. Please note the recurring ‘fax’ theme. The Oregon DMV would not fill out their part until Chase filled their part first. Why? I just needed their gorram address (and a signature of the representative that provides the address). They refused to fill out their part of the form because Chase hadn’t signed it yet. It wasn’t Oregon that was giving up the title, it was Kansas! I don’t know why Oregon cares if Chase approves my request or not. They are simply the recipient. That whole notion was lost on everyone that tried to ‘help’ me.

So instead of the flow of paperwork going from me to Oregon DMV to Chase to Kansas DOR to Oregon DMV it goes me to Chase to me to Oregon DMV to Oregon DMV in Salem (our capitol) to Kansas DOR to Oregon. And instead of zipping across the country via fax, every leg of the journey will be traveled via the postal service. Good chance we won’t be (legally) driving after October 12th.