Leaving the Land of Lincoln Behind

So I spent 4.5 hours yesterday with Darby for DMV stuff in an effort to become legit and register my car in California. The nightmare began when I called myself being thrifty and not renewing my license plate registration in Chicago- it expired at the end of March and I was leaving at that time so I figured- what is the harm? Well, little did I know- the San Diego coppers would not be too kind to an expired license plate- I got a ticket for that 3 days after my first ticket for not cramping my wheel on the hill. Um hello? Clearly I have Land of Lincoln plates- it is flat, no random hills or inclines to cramp and use parking brake- this is rubbish! I decided to take one for the team and pay for the expired license but plead ignorance on the parking on the hill- I am sorry, I have been driving for 16 yrs on flat surfaces- things like right of way and yielding 200 ft from railroad crosswalk just dont have space in my memory bank...

This was actually a two part dealy- first I went to the DMV two months ago to request the registration, I paid a whopping $129 to receive temporary registration but since I didn't get a smog test I was given 60 days to have the test completed. I am still not 100% sure what the smog test does but I would imagine they want to make sure Darby is an active contributor to making the earth green and not blue/black. I checked online and there were plenty of "Smog Test Only" facilities to choose from, on a whim after reading one helpful Yelp review I called downtown and the guy was so friendly and encouraging on the phone I had to come down. He explained for the year, make and model of my car it would only take 15 minutes and would cost $50- compared to the $160 charge at the dearlership this was the golden ticket!