CALIFORNIA: How may we inconvenience you?

All states are screwed up. If you've been around for more than a Hoboken heartbeat you know that the government can run NOTHING! State governments are merely minor league versions of the ineptitude demonstrated daily by the hideous buffoons in charge of our federal store.

In my checkered radio career I managed to drag Linda and the girls to addresses in, by best estimate, ten states. This is our second time as residents of California and most of the time that's okay with me. The Golden State and the West in general is full of folks just like us, natives of other places who wound up here by way of some interesting story. That is the absolute best thing about this realm, everybody has a story. So...I like the place. It feels like home.

There are, however, some problems:

First of all, California has too damn many people. That means too many taxes and WAY too many laws designed by professional politicians interested only in perpetuating their over-paid fat ass jobs. That's why the state is forecasting a deficit of anywhere from 18 to 42 billion dollars this year. (The differences in the projections depends on who you're more inclined to believe: our lying governor or our lying Democratic legislature. Imbeciles ALL!)

Okay, okay...here's what got me going:
One of our cars needed a smog inspection for this year's registration renewal. Actually, two of our three cars (Hey, it's California!) needed to be "smogged". Here's where it gets interesting.
Because my "baby" the electric green Mustang convertible just turned ten years of age, it needed to go to a "test only" smog inspection station. The other car could get its inspection at most any garage that had a state inspection machine, but the Mustang could not.
"No way", was the response when my regular wrench jockey, Ralph, explained to me that he couldn't do the inspection. "You have to go to a test only station with this baby; we're a test and repair station."
"Let me see if I've got this straight," I say. "Because the car is now ten years old and more likely to fail the smog test, I am now required to go to a test only station which will send me to a test and repair station if the car should fail?"
Ralph nodded his head in reply. "It's a bitch ain't it?" "Gotta love California."

It cost me $56 for the smog test at some fat guy's testing station. The Mustang passed. I'm not having an aneurysm. The state is still broke.

California...like a high maintenance woman, you love her but SOMETIMES...