Jackson Jambalaya

 Nothing like being caught in a bureaucratic nightmare where everyone points the fingers at each other while spinning around the poor citizen so much that his head flies off. A friend posted this on Facebook yesterday.

So. I went to get a chest xray today. Last week I had discovered that my license had expired and I put it in my coat pocket in order to go renew it,  however I felt like punk, and therefore did not go get it renewed.

Today I drive out to MEA for xray and labs, because...still feeling like punk.  The desk woman wants my license, for admission to clinic. No jacket no license. Drive long assway back to house for license and go up to license renewal place and sit with the unhappy masses and wait three hours for them to call my number.

We all sit and bitch and share stories for three hours. Finally, sweet baby Jesus in the blessed manger they call my number. I practically skip to he desk. She takes my picture, bad picture, but what the hell, I have had my number called! Then she twiddles with the computer for 15 minutes. Can’t give me my ugly picture, my social security name does not match my driver license. Need my social security card to get ugly picture. I don’t know where the duck my social security card is!

It is 3:35, I cut a corner because there is n telling where ss card is. I zip down to federal building to get a new card. Easypeas. Take another number and sit again. My number gets called. I go skip to the desk. She pulled me up. Needs my driver license. Expired. Needs a medical record. Circle back up to top of page. I could not see a doctor because my license is expired.

Ouch.  Nothing like bureaucrats. However,  Times-Picayune reporter Chelsea Brasted can beat that story.  I almost hesitated posting this column from several months ago because I didn't want to inspire our local bureaucrats:

It cost me $31.49 to buy a $3 bicycle registration in New Orleans. I went through it so you don't have to.

Here's why: A couple weeks ago, I had a conversation with Kevin Louis, a local musician who ended up getting a traffic ticket for four bike infractions, including biking against traffic and not having bike lights nor registration, tallying up a $920 fine. When I wrote about the ticket and the punishment that didn't match the crimes, several emails landed in my inbox.

"Most frustrating," read one, "is the fine for not having the bike registered."

Louis was charged $157.50 for that infraction. That's a fine costing more than 50 times the cost of the registration itself, so what would it take to actually register your bike? I had my doubts about whether it was as impossible as I read in my email inbox, so I hopped on my own set of wheels Tuesday (July 3), hoping to figure it out for myself.

My bike -- I've named her Stella -- is a big cruiser I got as a birthday present in 2014, and she's my preferred method of transportation around New Orleans when the heat index is somewhere below 108.

But until writing Louis' story, I didn't know bike registration was required. City code mandates all bikes be registered, but those with wheels 20 inches or less in diameter or those valued at $100 or less get the $3 fee waived. The purpose of this is unclear, and if you do a cursory search online, you won't find any official information from the city explaining how this is to be accomplished. What you can find is information from other entities and non-profits, but none that actually tells you what to do about registering your bike.

Dive into the city code, however, and you'll read that bike registration must be managed by the New Orleans Police Department, the New Orleans Fire Department and New Orleans bike sellers. Representatives of those entities also can refuse to register a bike they feel isn't mechanically sound, though questions about what makes some city officials qualified to make that judgment, what happens to the money raised through bike registration and how much it totals were referred to the municipal code itself.

On Tuesday, I wanted to figure out, at least, how to register a bike, so I rolled Stella right into the lobby of NOPD headquarters off Broad Street.

At first, I was turned away because it's 2018 and, though you can buy drugs on Instagram and pay your rent with Venmo, to do business with some parts of the city of New Orleans, you need a check or money order. I walked to a nearby gas station and secured the latter. (Ka-ching: $6.49, between the cost of the money order and ATM fees, because you have to pay cash for those.)

But if, like me, your bike came from outside Orleans Parish or through a second-hand dealer, and you don't have the original receipt, things get more complicated. At NOPD, the man who first came down to fill out my registration, informed me I needed a signed and notarized affidavit with the bike's serial number, stating I was its owner. So, I was turned away from NOPD for the second time, and I wasn't allowed to take the form with me to understand what other information was needed.

I wheeled across Broad Street to the nearest lawyer I could find and met John Radziewicz at the Crescent City Law Firm. Radziewicz, who said much of his business comes from traffic tickets, offered up a cautionary tale: Some bike infractions will count against your car insurance, if you have it, so cycle wisely. Good to know.

Radziewicz wrote up my affidavit, including the serial number I read off from Stella's grimy underside, and I returned to NOPD, triumphant, but another $25 poorer. (Radziewicz also sent me the blank affidavit, which can be downloaded as a Word document by clicking here, for those hoping to secure their own bike registration. You can have it signed and notarized, if you don't have proof of purchase.)

I had the money order. I had an affidavit, stamped and all, from a local notary, and I had my bike, which I rolled up to the department's front desk.

Within minutes, a woman appeared to fill out my registration form. As she wrote in my contact information, she came to the line for the serial number.

"That's not right," she said.
A bike registration sticker features the NOPD logo and a unique license number.

What?

"That number isn't the serial number."

My eyebrows raised. I wasn't eager to leave NOPD empty-handed for the third time.

The woman pointed instead to dirt-covered digits I hadn't noticed were imprinted in my bike's undercarriage between its pedals. I leaned down, eventually lying prostrate on the floor of the police headquarters, reading the numbers off as the woman wrote them on the form.

My $25 affidavit, it seemed, was essentially worthless.

Maybe it was tenacity. Maybe it was because the woman believed I hadn't stolen the bike, though I could have lied about that to Radziewicz when he notarized my form. (I didn't, I promise!) Or maybe it was because I looked pathetic enough with my face pressed against the floor, but the woman went ahead and filled out my form anyway. Then she smoothed the NOPD's registration sticker onto my bike.

Before I left, one of the three women at the front desk who had watched me come and go from the police headquarters asked me how much I ended up spending on the whole process, and I told her. All three shook their heads as I snapped on my bike helmet and headed back into the steamy New Orleans Tuesday afternoon, this time for good.

So, is bike registration impossible in New Orleans? Nope, it can actually be done, even though the city offers no direction about how to do it.

Is it an unnecessarily tedious process? Absolutely. But was there any doubt about that?

Thankfully, the New Orleans just abolished bike registration.