Adventures in Town Hall

Went to town hall to get a dump permit. Most people get new permits every year. I haven't bothered. The guy who mans the transfer station usually "forgets" to take my permit. Since they don't expire, it lasted a long long time. Finally, the permit got so ragged that it was time to replace it. They are free, so why not?

The line at the Town Clerk's window, that's why. Now I have a pretty good relationship with the Town Clerk. Often I can do things like register my car with half the paperwork missing. She's helped me work around state requirements. Today she wasn't cutting anyone any slack. All the paperwork had to be in order. Now I don't know if her higher ups read her the riot act or if she was just having a bad day. It did not help that the computers were crashing, and the Internet was down. Might have just been a bad day.

Eventually I got far enough down the line to say hello. She asked if I too had to register a vehicle. Only getting a dump permit, I said. She then informed me that I could get that from another office. Got to meet a new secretary, who had absolutely no sense of humor. At least there was no line. She did issue my permits.

Why do I even bother with things like dump permits? It's the little details that officials focus on, often missing the big picture. Take one of the recent times I went to the transfer station. I had my permit, so I could go in and unload my truck. Never mind that I had boxes of mixed debris that really should have gone into separate piles. Never mind that the stuff came not from my house, but from my daughter's -in another state. (as state with strict and crazy rules and crazy bureaucrats that looks a lot like Massachusetts.)

So yeah, I'll fiddle with the little details. It gives me a chance to get away with the big things.

I remember the time a rookie cop in town caught a guy who'd shot a sheriff in a neighboring state. He stopped the car because a taillight was out. Running the guy's license showed he was a wanted man. It's that one little detail, a burned out taillight, that tripped the guy up. Had his running gear been in order, he'd have sailed right by.

-Sixbears