On Thursday I discovered that my bike license expired at the end of February, not the end of March, as I had thought. Panic. Fortunately on Friday we stop work at lunch time, so I sprang into action.
Unlike the driver's license, which one can process at any centre, renewing vehicle licenses has to be done within your residential municipality. I live in Johannesburg, but work in Benoni, about five minutes away from the Boksburg Licensing Department!
Anyway, I zoomed through Boksburg, stopping briefly at an ATM to draw enough cash for the license, then headed for the Johanneburg city centre as fast as I could, to get in before their 3:00pm closure.
Everything went perfectly. I was there shortly after 2:00pm, and had no problem finding a parking - having a bike, I simply parked on the pavement outside the front door, where bikes are expected to park!
Before I could get to the front door of the building, I was accosted by a couple of very persuasive men, who demanded to know what I was there for. When I told them, they expertly whipped out the appropriate form to fill in and announced that they would help me to complete it very quickly. I looked at them sceptically and asked if they worked there. They looked pained - and the one announced that the other one was "a consultant". They looked even more pained when I told them that I was perfectly capable of filling out a form without the help of consultants! "Well, at least buy us a cold drink," they whined.
Once inside, it took only moments to fill out the form, and there was someone on hand to show me which queue to join. Before too long, my number was called and someone processed my papers, then kept them and told me to join a different queue. That took longer, but a half hour or so later, a batch of numbers, including mine, was called and we were told which counter to go to. To my relief, that queue went fairly quickly - but it wasn't the goal yet. We were simply given our papers back, then told to join any of the others queues along a certain section, where the cashiers were.
3:00pm had come and gone, and the queues became shorter as no newcomers were allowed in. By shortly after 4:00pm, I had the goal in sight and was consoling myself that it had been worth it. At least my bike would be on the road legally again within a few minutes.
When my turn came, my papers were scrutinized, then shoved back at me. "You have an outstanding amount to pay on another vehicle," was the announcement. "Go to counter 20 and get a R114 form. You'll have to pay that before you can get this."
Turned out that there were outstanding license fees on a vehicle that had been in someone else's possession for some time, but had never been transferred - so instead of having to pay R108 for my bike license, I now needed to pay R693.30. By the time I'd received my R114 form with the due amounts, counters were closing rapidly as people packed up for the weekend. "Do you accept cards?" I asked with resignation.
"Yes, no problem. Just go back to one of those cashier counters that are still open."
So back to the final queue I went, sorely depressed, but with the knowledge that at least I'd get my license disk now.
When I got to the front, I pushed my papers under the window, along with my card. The woman looked up, with what seemed to be a triumphant glint in her eyes. "We can't take cards," she announced, "we're off-line! Come back on Monday."
I limped out with my tail between my legs, and rode home as unobtrusively as possible. No prizes for guessing where I'll start my Monday......
