At the license bureau

[vakkotaur]

This noon I stopped in at the local license bureau office to see about getting the license plate situation sorted out. When I showed the plates, the initial reaction was sort of disbelief, wondering how such a thing could happen. This was quickly followed by a concerned bewilderment of what to do. I explained that the while the stickers matched (each has a small number on it) the one plate had the callsign of a fellow in Moorhead. "Oh, you ran the plate already?" I explained that I could check a public database of amateur radio callsigns.

I was asked what sort of vehicle I drove as someone looked up the two plates. Both plates were photocopied. There was more puzzlement about what exactly to do. When another worker came into the office, I got the peculiar question, "Do you want to keep this one?" I explained it wasn't really mine and the callsign was issued to someone else.

Eventually:

* I wound up filling out some of the form for a new set of plates. They weren't sure how to fill all of it out, but would be taking car of that as they figured it out. I hope it works out right and that someone doesn't try to charge me the plate fee again for this.

* I was issued a new piece of paper to display in the rear window, allowing (another) sixty days of running without the exact right new plates.

* I was told to put the one valid plate, which was returned to me, on the rear of the car.

* I was told to remove the front plate, so there'd be no mismatch. (The paper supposedly will cover the absence of the front plate. Minnesota is not a rear plate only state.)

I fully expect to be answering questions from folks about the absence of a front plate. I also expect that among those folks will be a policeman or two. For that reason, I will be keeping the old plates in the car, just in case someone has an idea different from what I was told at the license bureau.