I like my silverware drawer tidy. I like my drinking glass cabinet the same way. I prefer you didn’t touch my tie, mostly because of the natural oils on your skin. And it’s important to me that both the registration and inspection stickers on the windshield of my car are parallel to each other and perpendicular to the dash.
I know what you’re thinking.
And you’re correct.
But, hey, this is me.
Back to those stickers. In New York State, both your vehicle registration and inspection stickers are placed on the very bottom of the driver’s side of your windshield. Your registration is good for two years, your inspection, only one. I prefer that these two stickers, if they must be there, are cohabiting peacefully in a state of visual harmony. I want them to be applied with care. It’s a little piece of order that greets you every time you slip into the cockpit.
So, when my windshield, having been hit by a rock somewhere on the Mass Pike last July, cracked, I had a pickle. It wasn’t a big crack. It was more of a hefty chip. Which I knew was going to grow into a mighty fault line when winter came and the defroster warmed up to the windshield. But that was many months away. I could wait. My registration was up for renewal that same month so I taped the new sticker on temporarily. I would adhere it down the road when I finally replaced the windshield. I wanted to avoid having it scraped off and then taped on the new windshield in some disheveled and cattywampus fashion by whomever would replace it. And it worked. One crisp winter evening the defroster increased the crack by a factor of 10. I had the windshield replaced and put the registration sticker on myself. Of course the inspection sticker was slapped back on with little regard but that’s okay. My inspection is up this month, actually last month. (I’ve got an appointment for this Saturday.) So I was delighted to witness, just last week, my windshield crack, this time without being struck.
What a kick in the cashews.
It just popped while driving. Probably because the temperatures were around zero degrees most of the week. Or because I’m cursed. That new registration sticker, good for another 18 months, is already on the recently-replaced, more recently-cracked windshield, looking terrified. Saturday was supposed to be the day that mandatory windshield sticker nirvana was to be achieved. But it looks like that won’t be the case. It’s back to windshield sticker purgatory for me. I’ll be replacing the windshield, getting a fresh inspection sticker and hoping the registration doesn’t get too whacked in the transfer. The order I seek must come from other sources.
Perhaps I’ll organize the silverware.
