3 Truly is the Magic Number

On April first, I went on the fool's errand of converting my Connecticut driver's license to one issued by my new state of Massachusetts. Yes, I know law requires this conversion much sooner to the conversion of residency, but in light of the fact that I don't actually drive and the license is primarily a form of identification, the switch seemed of less legal importance.

Did I debate giving up a driver's license? Yes, very, very briefly, as in, "Hmm, no." I live in a world redesigned for automobile transport, and while I may resist that as best I can, it doesn't make sense to give up the PERMISSION the license grants me. It was a much longer debate to keep the motorcycle endorsement, along with Massachusetts' $15 surcharge to check that box, but again, I decided against ceding a permission.

Fool's errand, my first foolish mistake was to assume that a CT Real ID would convert to a MA Real ID, which I still think was really a reasonable assumption, but no. Massachusetts wanted to see all the same documentation I'd presented to Connecticut in order to replace a Real ID license with the same. $25 charge to replace a fake ID license with a Real one if not completed in the first transaction.

While inconvenient, this didn't end my world. Of course, while I almost never drive, there was a somewhat timely impetus to update my license right when my CT version expired: a dear friend had requested my help with driver duties for a medical appointment that included sedation, three days after the 1st. No problem, I can still enjoy my birthday without a trip to the Registrar of Motor Vehicles and then return Wednesday with documents and a day to spare on friend-helping-duties.

Or I could mess up and not carefully inspect the copy of my birth certificate pulled from my files. "Copy" is the key word here, and copies of documents are not acceptable at the RMV, which I had read and knew from the instructions given to me. Oops, I just didn't know I'd had a reproduction in my files, so I never thought to look closely after I saw "Certificate of Birth".

Yes, my bad, and my mistake, so I'll pay the $25 charge later, have a MA license, without the Real ID endorsement, issued on the 3rd, and still keep my commitment to my friend on the 4th. "No," I'm told, I can't even switch to a fake ID license without a birth certificate, because it's obviously questionable that I was born!

But as the saying says, necessity sparks invention, so after immediately calling my friend with the not so good news (happily, there was a backup friend to help), I hopped on my bike for a rainy ride to the same friend's house for our planned visit. Say what you will about necessity, for me, bike riding is the gestation period of invention. I had an idea!

Yes, I live in a world where cars are the dominant form of transportation, but they are not the only. There are these neat big boxes on wheels called buses, and my friend also lives in Northampton, a town with rail service to Springfield and the awaited medical appointment. Yay! A bit of poking and internet rummaging and we find there is an express bus from Northampton to Springfield with one stop in Holyoke, and with one transfer, we can then ride another bus from Union Station to the medical office!

Or at least, we can until about nine in the morning. With the appointment in early afternoon, and morning prep for it, 9am departure won't work, but yay, there's that backup friend with both a valid driver's license and a valid vehicle who can drop the two of us in Springfield, and we can then avail ourselves of the commuter express bus for the return trip to Northampton. Again, yay, and if we'd had more leisure for reviewing the bus schedules, we'd have noticed the timing issue was with the connecting transfer, not the express bus from Northampton, so next time!

It was neat! Buses are neat. I wish they were more popular, but the advantage unpopularity was that with four riders total on the run to Northampton, we had a luxurious amount of room. And finally, yes, I returned to the RMV on Monday, paid my $130, and now get to see how long until I actually use the state's permission to drive. That ride down to Springfield, I realized it was my first time in a car this year!