For the last several months I've been fighting a seemingly never ending battle with the California Deparment of Motor Vehicles over the title to my last car, a 1999 Midnight Blue Saab 9-3, which had been an absolute dream to own until I didn't own it, but was still responsible for it.

In September of 2002 I was trying to sell my Saab, but I didn't have much luck, but I was under a huge deadline. I was leaving for the Peace Corps. By the time I got on the plane in mid-October, the car was still not sold. My brother had expressed interest. In fact, there was a plan afoot for him to fly out from DC and for us to drive cross country together. A sort of a last hurrah before I went off to Samoa for two years.

Anyway, for one reason or another, it didn't work out. I left. The car was unsold and my brother kept driving his old Saturn. But sometime during my frequent trips back from our training village in rural Upolu to the capital, Apia. I worked out with my brother that he would buy the car simply by taking over the payments on the loan, which were extremely reasonable. We would both benefit. I would be rid of the car and continue to improve my credit rating and Brian would have a great car. But there was a problem.

Somehow, somewhere, some one forgot to deal with the title. There was a specific person who had a limited power of attorney to deal with matters of the car, yet the title slipped everyone's mind, that is until Brian has to register the car in DC and doesn't have the title to do it. This is where the mess begins and we've spent a good part of this year trying to untie the Gordian knot of the DMV bureaucracy. Fortunately we managed it, but it was starting to look like it was going to get the best of us.

It's never easy to deal with the DMV. Long lines, complete incompetence and a computer system that predates the Nixon administration are the hallmarks of this less than stalwart organization. The problem was exacerabated by the fact that neither my brother nor I resided in California at the time, so it would all have to be handled by mail and phone, never a recipe for expediency.

Brian obtained all the documents, or so we thought. I just needed to send them into the DMV with a check for 15 bucks and it would be over, right? I even express mailed it with a pre-paid express envelope. For my efforts I received all the documents back and a note that said I needed a copy of the back of one of the forms. When I called the DMV to find out what I needed to fill out on this form, they said, nothing, we just need the form. What? COULDN'T YOU JUST HAVE PRINTED OUT ONE OUT? Too simple. I send the forms back in, again with the express mail thing (this costs 27.50 each time just for postage.) I even included a note for them to call or email if there was a problem.

This time I got the forms back in the mail (not so much as a call or email) and was told that I needed a lien holder release from the bank, even though the loan had been paid off months ago. So we contacted the bank and got a notorized release and sent the forms back in and waited, and waited, and waited.

Then I moved to California and thought this would all end. I could just go down to the DMV, which happened to be right around the corner, and settle the matter. But I was wrong. I went in. I was told they couldn't access the account. That their computer system was so old that they couldn't even put a note to change my mailing address so that the title would not be send to Colorado where I had been living. There was nothing to do but wait or resubmit the paperwork to this branch office which was not an option because I didn't have a copy of all the forms, a mistake I will never make again.

With my patience growing thin, I called Sacramento, the DMV HQ, two days ago, only to be told that the title had been mailed on the 26th. It should arrive any day now, and, amazingly, it did, that afternoon. I signed the pink slip in all the right places, or so I hoped, and overnighted it to my brother in DC. This afternoon, I got the following message from my brother:

cool news.

my long national nightmare is over.