so incredibly legal

This is a fine, fine day, my friends. Perhaps you think it's because of the 85-degree weather, which would indeed be lovely if I were outdoors. Who invented this "workweek" thing anyway? I think work should only be required on gross days.

I digress.

The beauty of this day is that as of today I've accomplished my ambitious list of car goals for the past three days. I have:

1) Obtained up-to-date, excellent, shockingly inexpensive car insurance. Plus I finally went back to State Farm (from the lizard) (talk about a successful ad campaign) and no longer feel like I am biting the hand that fed me (explanation: State Farm's world headquarters are in my hometown and provide nearly the entire economic base for the community, and my mother - hi Mom! - worked there for a while, which made me eligible for a State Farm-sponsored scholarship, which is largely how I could afford the college I went to).

2) Obtained a Vermont drivers license and registration. Oooh, pretty green license plates!

3) Gotten my emissions inspection, which is an East Coast (and California?) thing you have to do every year and must be done within 15 days of registering the vehicle. Did anyone actually expect me to take care of that within 15 days? I didn't think so.

4) Gotten my oil changed. Only 2,000 miles overdue on that one. But they really just say that to get you to spend more money, you know. Every 6,000 miles is fine, said my truly wonderful mechanic in Queens who later got (*sniff) shut down by the IRS. aHA, so I'm actually EARLY on the oil change. Go me.

5) Gotten my pretty green VT plates actually ATTACHED to the car, which is no small feat considering that the crazy uninsured man who front-swiped me a few months ago in New York City sheared off my front license plate in such a way that new holes had to be drilled in my (still very bashed-in) front bumper to attach the plate.

I'm sure you'll agree that that's quite a lot to do in three days. And now my car is so incredibly, beautifully legal that I just want to speed right past a cop. Ha ha, just kidding (hi Mom!). But seriously, while the above may sound like a list of just your basic car care responsibilities that we all have to do, many of you know that I am something of a gigantic failure when it comes to doing these things in a timely manner.* And since setting your standards low helps ensure you will meet them, I feel pretty darn proud of myself right now.

*Luckily when I went through airport security to go to Minneapolis a couple weeks ago, it was either too early or too busy for the TSA officer who told me my license had expired (hey, I was really busy that day) to care all that deeply.