We bought a van last month.  We were kind of looking for another car, but we didn’t have anything specific in mind.  This one was almost dropped in our laps.  It is handicapped accessible.  ’03 Windstar with 4 leather captain’s chairs.  The heater works wonderfully well.  Haven’t needed an AC in months.

When we got the TX title in the mail (The guy who sold us the car didn’t have it readily available when we bought it . . .he’s completely trustworthy.)  I called my insurance company. (Insert shameless plug for Shelter here.) I bought insurance on it over the phone, she emailed me the verification forms.  I printed them out and took them and the title with me to the tag agency.  As an afterthought I took the little card to renew the tag for our ’03 Chevy Astro that we’ve owned and insured for almost 100K miles.  My Hubby was going to take care of it later in the week, but, hey, while I’m there I might as well.

While I was there (this was an afterthought to the afterthought) I asked about the tag for my pickup truck.  The tags for the truck and the Chevy are one number different.  I figured if they had the tag number they could tell me when the tag was due, right?  Easy.  Right?

That was when the poop hit the fan–not to put too fine a point on it.  They insisted that the tag on the truck didn’t expire in January of 2015.  They insisted that it expired in January of 2014–despite the fact that it had an “expires in Jan 2015 sticker.”

So, I tagged the Ford, I tagged the Chevy, I also tagged the Dodge and got out of there in a little less than two hours and less than $500.

It turns out that DPS was right–on a technicality.  (They also remained pleasant throughout the entire process.)  Thank God the penalty was only $100.00.   Right?