Give me about 10 years and I may laugh about this. For now, I’m still getting over the aggravation. Part of it 
is getting used to the differences between how Texas and Oklahoma handle license renewals (and just everything in general!), and part of it is how stupid I feel for not realizing my license had expired!
See, in Texas they send you this nice little reminder card (at least they used to) about six weeks before your expiration date. Not so in Oklahoma. So last weekend, when my husband was trying to add me on as a driver on a loaner car while ours is in the shop (another long story!), he discovered my license expired LAST SEPTEMBER!!!
Which came as a total surprise because we both got our Oklahoma licenses on the same day shortly after moving here in 2006. My husband has until NEXT August before his expires, so we couldn’t figure out why mine was up for renewal almost a full year earlier.
Anyway, the loaner car lady told my husband that since I’d passed the expiration date, I’d have to bring in my birth certificate. So first thing Monday morning we traipsed over to the tag agency with the only copy of my birth certificate I owned--an official notarized copy that was plenty good to apply for a US passport several years ago.
But not good enough for the tag agent. (If you don’t live in Oklahoma, you may not know what a tag agent is. I’m not sure I can explain it in 50 words or less. Sorry.) She said I had to take it to the drivers license exam station. So off we went. Well, it wasn’t good enough there either. The nice lady told me to come back with my passport.
She also bent over backwards trying to find out why my license expired so much earlier than my husband’s. Come to find out, I probably said yes when they asked me if I wanted my license to expire the same month as my birthday. But since a license is only good for 4 years and no more, I ended up paying for 4 years but only got 3 years and 1 month out of the deal.
Are you still with me???
More on the idiosyncrasies of Oklahoma. At the drivers license station they took my photo, signature, and two fingerprints. THEN they sent me BACK to the tag agency with my paperwork. There, they took my photo, signature, and fingerprints AGAIN, plus my $21.50. And five minutes later a little machine spit out my renewed license.
So I’m happy to report that I am once again a legal driver. And I want to extend a sincere thank-you to Kim, the super-sweet lady at the drivers license exam station who bore with my frustration and went beyond the call of duty in getting answers to my questions and concerns.
See, in Texas they send you this nice little reminder card (at least they used to) about six weeks before your expiration date. Not so in Oklahoma. So last weekend, when my husband was trying to add me on as a driver on a loaner car while ours is in the shop (another long story!), he discovered my license expired LAST SEPTEMBER!!!
Which came as a total surprise because we both got our Oklahoma licenses on the same day shortly after moving here in 2006. My husband has until NEXT August before his expires, so we couldn’t figure out why mine was up for renewal almost a full year earlier.
Anyway, the loaner car lady told my husband that since I’d passed the expiration date, I’d have to bring in my birth certificate. So first thing Monday morning we traipsed over to the tag agency with the only copy of my birth certificate I owned--an official notarized copy that was plenty good to apply for a US passport several years ago.
But not good enough for the tag agent. (If you don’t live in Oklahoma, you may not know what a tag agent is. I’m not sure I can explain it in 50 words or less. Sorry.) She said I had to take it to the drivers license exam station. So off we went. Well, it wasn’t good enough there either. The nice lady told me to come back with my passport.
She also bent over backwards trying to find out why my license expired so much earlier than my husband’s. Come to find out, I probably said yes when they asked me if I wanted my license to expire the same month as my birthday. But since a license is only good for 4 years and no more, I ended up paying for 4 years but only got 3 years and 1 month out of the deal.
Are you still with me???
More on the idiosyncrasies of Oklahoma. At the drivers license station they took my photo, signature, and two fingerprints. THEN they sent me BACK to the tag agency with my paperwork. There, they took my photo, signature, and fingerprints AGAIN, plus my $21.50. And five minutes later a little machine spit out my renewed license.
So I’m happy to report that I am once again a legal driver. And I want to extend a sincere thank-you to Kim, the super-sweet lady at the drivers license exam station who bore with my frustration and went beyond the call of duty in getting answers to my questions and concerns.
