{"id":856,"date":"2014-02-16T14:43:44","date_gmt":"2014-02-16T21:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/?p=856"},"modified":"2014-02-16T14:46:07","modified_gmt":"2014-02-16T21:46:07","slug":"the-dmv-and-expensive-french-shoes-who-treads-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/?p=856","title":{"rendered":"The DMV and Expensive French Shoes: Who Treads Better?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Repaired<\/a>

Repaired shoes with tag showing that they were received on August 8, and newspaper from the date they were returned, November 22.<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve had a close encounter with the California DMV.\u00a0 The dreaded Division of Motor Vehicles required that I take the exam before it would renew my driver\u2019s license.\u00a0 Since I had not taken the written driver\u2019s test for nearly 40 years, the experience filled me with much trepidation, and put me in a room with many 15-18 year olds.<\/p>\n

The DMV computer was having a bad network day, and not everything was going smoothly: the lines were long, and I was prepared to grumble about government incompetence.\u00a0 But surprise: the DMV folks were actually nice, well informed, and helpful.\u00a0 They circulated among the people waiting, asking what they had come in for, passing out the proper forms, and giving folks clipboards to write on.\u00a0 Service with a smile, mostly, continued throughout the process.\u00a0 Despite the computer problems, I was fingerprinted, eye examined, tested, photographed, and out the door in 75 minutes.<\/p>\n

Not bad for government work, I thought.\u00a0 And I contrasted this with the service I\u2019d received recently from the maker of expensive French shoes.\u00a0 Over the years, I\u2019ve purchased several pairs of pricey Mephisto shoes.\u00a0 They fit my feet, wear well, and they can be rebuilt to last for decades.\u00a0 I still wear a pair I bought in 1991.<\/p>\n

Last summer I noticed that the soles on a pair of old favorites were wearing out, and so I sent them to the company\u2019s repair service in San Diego, which advertises that the turnaround time would be about four weeks, which seems plenty long enough.<\/p>\n

The shoes I sent on August 1 were returned on November 22, 16 weeks including shipping.\u00a0 The proffered reason was that needed materials had to be shipped from France.\u00a0 Gee, they\u2019re French shoes; that would be where the repair materials might come from, and\u2014last I knew\u2014cargo planes from Paris landed in California every day.\u00a0 These soles must have been on a container ship that traversed the Panama Canal.<\/p>\n

Mephisto didn\u2019t offer even a hint of an apology much less a refund or reduction price for its lousy service, which in retrospect left me thinking, I\u2019d rather deal with that most dread agency of government, the DMV. \u00a0So, when I pass the fancy French shoe rack in the future, I\u2019ll keep on walking.<\/p>\n

(BTW: read the manual and take the practice tests.\u00a0 It\u2019s fun to pass with flying colors while the youngsters struggle.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve had a close encounter with the California DMV.\u00a0 The dreaded Division of Motor Vehicles required that I take the exam before it would renew my driver\u2019s license.\u00a0 Since I had not taken the written driver\u2019s test for nearly 40 years, the experience filled me with much trepidation, and put me in a room with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[174,175],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=856"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":861,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions\/861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}