As we all know citizenship is an important part of the cloth of our society, it’s our identity, our customs and the perception others have of us, and as such we must work at it and maintain our identity.

So, in my strident determination to maintain my Texas citizenship and identity it is now time for license plate renewal on the Jeep. This is a continuation of the story back on January 8^th and Webb County Texas. So, I needed insurance to get new plates and as I’m going through Laredo next week I needed insurance for NOB anyway and Monday I went down to Lloyds in Ajijic and talked to a nice lady about getting short term liability for the trip. I mentioned getting plates and she said she didn’t thing Texas would accept their insurance, I thanked her and headed home to make a call to Webb County.

Of course I had forgotten where I was and the phone message for Webb County said something like “hey fool, it’s MLK day and we’re gone, call tomorrow”. Of course MLK doesn’t get a day down here, you need to be named something like Cardenas, Zaragosa or Saint Tecate (patron saint of bar tenders – really) to get a special day. At any rate I was a bit put off, but undeterred and waited until Tuesday to call again.

This time I talked to a fellow said the policy had to be for 30 days and could not mention “tourist” or “garaged in MX”. I read carefully and it said neither, but did say “not valid in MX and not for cars garaged in the US”. So, by default it didn’t look good. I called back and talked to two more ladies and eventually a supervisor each time repeating my sad story and dilemma (to little avail I might add). However, the supervisor did give me two phones numbers of Laredo agencies who might help.

The first couldn’t write a policy, but the second sounded more hopeful – then began the tangled web or nuisance living in sunny MX can ensnare you in at times. What is your address? – 413 InterAmerica etc. and she said she knew that was a business, I said yes, it was a mail box. Oh, that won’t work, so I said I’ll give you the address on my passport, Lakeway. That worked on her computer for a time and was going to cost more due to proximity to Austin, but then we hung up on being supposedly garaged in Lakeway and getting plates in Laredo, so back to the Laredo address.

With pen in hand (actually fingers on keyboard) she managed to get by the computer and then it came time for the phone number in Laredo? – well, my 512 number isn’t Laredo and I tried to explain that numbers don’t matter anymore but the computer thought otherwise so she put in their office phone – ha, take that you stupid program.

Eventually we ended up at the credit card part and son of a gun, it had no problem at all processing that information immediately and sucking $39.95 out of my account. So, after a fair amount of work, being the good citizen of TX that I am it looks like I’ll get new plates next Tuesday morning and we’ll be legal again. I told the lady at Webb County she’d recognize me as the first guy in line with my nose pressed against the window, she laughed – she thought I was joking, I wasn’t.

The alternative to all this is to get South Dakota plates. Seems one county up there has a nifty little revenue generator, you send them money and they send you plates to keep you legal in far away places. There are many plates here from SD and I’d bet that about 98% of them have never been in that state (why would you go there anyway?) but none-the-less they are legal. Now, if we could just get them to issue passports as well it might be a lot easier.

The lawyer I’m going to use to get my FM3 visa is Mexican lady and married to an American, just recently she received her US visa allowing her free travel NOB, her husband told her “oh dear that will be so nice for you, now you don’t have to swim across the river anymore to visit your relatives NOB”.