Financial Wheeling and Dealing, Tax Division

The deadline for renewing my car's registration is here . . . so I bought a couple bottles of wine.

It's not that the re-registration process is something that could drive someone to drink. I have mentioned before that it's actually very quick, simple and relatively painless. Bring the registration notice to the county building, pick up a number, stand in the shortest imaginable line (there was one couple ahead of me), hand the notice to the clerk, pay the fee, receive the sticker and off you go. Fifteen minutes, including travel time (we live pretty near the county building).

No, the wine, or at least some purchase (I also bought dates, figs, tomatoes, onions, a wedge of brie and a pomegranate), is necessary because the county insists on tacking on a surcharge to all payments made with debit/credit cards and, since I still use my bank back in Salt Lake City, meaning all ATMs out here are out-of-market and charge fees for extracting cash, therefor getting said money requires going to the grocery store and adding on the cash-back option to my purchase.

Theoretically, I could just buy a pack of gum and still get the $60 cash back but that seems lame and Thanksgiving is here so we're going to indulge anyway.

And the car's legal for another year.