I need you to understand something. In my family of origin, cars are a big deal. In the chief recipe tester's family of origin, cars are a big deal. The chief recipe tester makes the older generation proud: upkeep of vehicles and their general maintenance are high priority tasks for him. I am missing a gene.

When the chief recipe tester was still interviewing for the position, and prior to the exchange of any sparkly jewellery, we drove up the coast for a holiday. We went in my car. While I was taking my turn to drive he learned forward and read the car rego sticker. There was a gasp. "The rego's due."

"What?"

"The car won't be registered by tomorrow." He opened the glovebox. "Where are the rego papers?"

I didn't say anything.

"They're not here, are they?"

I mumbled something about the desk at home. It was not well received. What followed involved a long detour to find the nearest RTA, a request for new rego papers, and the forking out of an additional fee. To his great credit, the chief recipe tester (in waiting) graciously assisted in this process. Until the gentleman assisting us assumed that it was he who had made the error. At that point the chief recipe tester almost jumped the counter. I thought he was going to withdraw his application to become chief recipe tester, immediately terminate the interview process and leave me to drive home alone in an unregistered vehicle.

Fast forward 15 odd years and things have improved. Rego stickers are a thing of the past, which means I'm much more likely to be able to hide my inepitude. The car rego was due recently, and so as a means of demonstrating how much I had improved I arranged for an inspection. Not without personal sacrifice, this necessitated some amount of begging on the phone with the mechanic to get an appointment before the due date, and then agreeing to get up very early on the weekend to present the vehicle at the designated time. I even remembered to take the rego papers.

Sadly, I had not taken the time to read said papers. The mechanic, however, obliged and read them to me, "No inspection is required."

Perhaps things don't change all that much.