Conclusion: Growing up doesn't necessarily make you smarter.

I walked into the police department today.

No, I wasn't in handcuffs. You probably already figured where that one was going. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting on my brief tour of the Provo City Center/Police Department today. Probably something out of an episode of Castle: busy people, phones ringing, some goofing off and a fair bit of good honest detective work. Maybe a couple of perps. Dirtbags? People in handcuffs. Not me, though. I'm a law-abiding citizen.

What I was not expecting for sure, though, were dark windows. Silence. The absence of ringing, talking, or any semblance of goofing, on or off.

Why did I visit the darkened doors of the Provo Police Department today, you ask? Well, I'm a college student. That by itself is not sufficient reason to visit the precinct, I'm aware, but it does allow one to infer several pieces of information about me. I go to college. Hence, I go to campus every day, or at least every day I have class, assuming I actually attend class (I do). Hence, I must somehow find a way to get to campus every day. Since I am a Good Student and there are many responsibilities vying for my time, it follows that I would also like to get to campus every day in as little of it as possible. Not following that line of logic but still relying on the basic fact that I am a college student, one can also infer that I am likely poor. Hence, I would like to save as much gas as possible in order to save as much money as possible in order to be able to eat.

Combine all of this information with the knowledge that BYU requires every bike ridden on campus to hold a Provo City Bike License and one can conclude, by very good inductive or deductive reasoning (man I can never remember which is which), that I walked into the Provo City Center today to register my bike and obtain a license so that I may park my bike (with a nifty bike lock that has letters instead of numbers so that I just have to remember a word instead of a 4 digit code to unlock it, "I can remember four numbers! What was the third one?") on BYU Campus legally and in relative peace of mind, safe in the knowledge that I am a law-abiding citizen and that should my bike be stolen, it will have been registered with the Provo Police Department and be tracked down with great efficiency and not taken to the basement of the Alamo.

At least, that was my intention when I locked my bike up on a rack in the shade near the underground parking garage of the City Center (using that nifty lock) and made my way upstairs to find the police department. The universe had other plans.

I had ridden my bike to campus that day and parked it in a covered rack area in the Helaman Halls housing complex. I'm a good planner, you see, and had decided that after my 10 o'clock class I would eat lunch at the Cannon Center then ride down to the Police Department and register my bike, which would make up for my slightly-illegal parking of the bike on campus before it had actually been licensed. During the interim of when I parked my bike at 8:30 and when I finished lunch at 11:30, I completely forgot where I had actually put it and so spent a few minutes wandering around, retracing my steps to find my bike. It worked this time, and by avoiding traffic and riding in the wide shoulders of the Provo roads I was able to make it to the City Center safe and sound. I even wore my helmet the whole time. Look what a good citizen I am.

And so I eventually found my way to the main floor of the center. It smelled like asbestos and was probably built in the 70s, but I was willing to overlook those faults in order to accomplish my goals. No offense to the 70s. I paused at the top of the stairs. To the left I saw directions to several departments of the City Center. Community Development? Irrelevant to me right now. Information, though... I may come back to that. To the right were similar signs. Mayor's Office, City Council... Aha! Police Department. I remembered reading online that I must go to the police department to obtain my bike license. Therefore, to the right I turned and began my trek towards future legal bike parking. And walked. And walked. Man that was a long hallway.

Along the way I passed several doors to which had been affixed the days and times of Police Department operations. Monday thru Thursday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm. Perfect, I thought. I'm here at 12:15 on Friday. It's right in the middle of their working hours; I suppose some people might be at lunch but it would be silly to have everyone go to lunch at once. I'm sure I can find someone to help me obtain my license, and then we can all be on our merry way.

Can you see where this is going.

Nearly all the doors also hold Provo's vaguely recent new logo, which looks a bit like the Obama logo, and the slogan "Welcome Home." I am a bit confused and offended by this. How much time do they want me to spend at the police department? If everyone considered it their home the police would have way too much work on their hands. Plus it's not the most comfortable of abodes; I'm sure I could find a bed somewhere but man that asbestos would get to me. Eventually I figured they were welcoming me home to Provo, not the police department. Alrighty then.

As I walk along the lengthy hallway I realize that instead of a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, the building is getting increasingly darker. Doors are shut on blackened offices and there isn't a soul in sight. I check the hours of operation again; I'm still between 7:00 am and 6:00 pm, so they can't possibly be closed. Maybe they're all out to lunch? The possibility seems slim, but there doesn't seem to be any other explanation for why the place appears to be shut down. I do see one lit room behind a door behind another door that says "POLICE PERSONNEL ONLY" and I'm too chicken to check it out. Well then. I guess I'll go to Information and see if they can solve the mystery for me, or at least give me my bike license. I begin the trek again.

A little before the point at which I had originally decided to turn right I discovered another way to go. This hallway bore the label "Customer Service" and looked vaguely promising. As I stood there puzzling and smelling the asbestos a lady paused on her way to the bathroom, the first living soul I had seen in the center so far.

"Can I help you find something?" she asked.

"I just need to register my bike," I replied, trying not to whine.

"It's just down this hallway, turn to the right and you'll be right there."

Hallelujah! At last my hard work paid off. I was finally a step closer to parking my bike in legal security. I tried to push the pull door and eventually made it inside the Customer Service area, where I awkwardly couldn't figure out where I was supposed to stand in line but eventually made it to the Customer Service Representative and told her, this time really not whining, that I needed to register my bike. She handed me a form and I began to fill it out.

I was almost immediately stumped. They want me to describe my bike, for obvious identification purposes, but I didn't know the answer to half the questions, and didn't know what the other half even meant. What are ram handlebars? How big are the wheels even? I could answer the color questions pretty well but got stuck on whether I should put the trim as being gray or white. Desk Lady was no help, so I did my best and handed her the form completed with the questions to which I knew the answers. She shrugged and seemed willing to accept what I had, but paused.

"I'm sorry, we're going to need the manufacturer's serial number."

Now, I knew that such information was likely going to be required. My older brother had told me about his experience registering his bike in Idaho: he didn't have his bike with him when he filled out the form and put 8675309 as the serial number. I was not going to stoop to such low actions; my jaunt through the darkened police department really made me reevaluate my life and no way was I going to lie on a form that was going to stay in police records forever. That's akin to putting the handcuffs on myself, I figured. No deception for me today; I was simply going to have to find that serial number. I already tried, by the way. I really did.

So I sighed a bit, tried to pull the push door, and made my way back down the asbestos stairs to the secluded rack where I had parked my cute yellow bike with the gray and white trim. The sun had moved by now, of course, and my bike was no longer in the shade. Brilliant. I looked around the frame for a while. No numbers. A couple of stickers, and a bit more dirt had accumulated than I had heretofore realized, but nothing resembling a serial number. I used my nifty internet-capable phone to solve my problem; the search "whee do you find a serial number on a bike" was sufficiently understood and I was presented with a diagram of possibilities as to where the serial number would most likely be. I checked each location; nothing. I went around to the other side of the bike and checked again; still nothing. On the verge of giving up, I finally decided to check once more; the underside of the pedal crank was the mostly likely place for the number to be, according to the website, and was also the hardest place for me to see from my position (namely, right side up). Well fine. I got down on the ground, situated myself to best view the numbers in my now upside-down state and Success! I had found the prize. I memorized the number, struggled to my feet, and was now ready to face the world with the information necessary to obtain a real-live bike license.

Back upstairs I went to the other Customer Service Representative to complete the process. I still hadn't figured out how big the wheels were, but the computer wouldn't let her finish it without the information so I just guessed something. This whole thing had already taken far too long. The license cost $1.00, so I handed her my debit card (yeah, I know it was only a dollar, but I still needed to pay my friend back with the only cash I have and remember how I'm a poor college student?) and surfed Facebook for a bit while she was finishing up. Soon enough she gets my attention.

"It says the serial number does not exist."

What.

She continues. "I'm sorry, we're not going to be able to finish this without the serial number. A police officer can stamp a serial number on it in order for it to be registered, but the department is closed on Fridays. You could call our Non-Emergency Dispatch and have a police officer meet you here in order to stamp it, but otherwise you'll have to come back on Monday."

Are you. Kidding me. Well, no way was I going to call a police officer just to get my bike registered. Do I even really need to license it? It sat on campus all morning and didn't get bothered, besides how are they supposed to know it's my bike if it's not even registered? This whole process is monstrous intolerable.

This story is getting long enough. I told her I'd come back Monday, got the door right this time, and went back downstairs, forgetting to grab one of the watermelon taffies sitting in a bowl on her desk. My bike's seat was now almost unbearably hot. On a whim I decided to once more check to see if I had gotten the number right and sat back down on the ground again. Hold on a minute. Did I put that number down as a 6 before? I think I may have put down an 8. But this is a 6. Maybe I got the number wrong in the first place, and that's why it said the number didn't exist! I'm going back up there right now and double checking. I have come this far and gosh darn it I will get my bike registered today! I stormed upstairs, stopped at the end of the desk because she was now working with another customer, and got the form out of my backpack.

I had written a 6 in the first place.

At this point I didn't even want a watermelon taffy anymore. I rode home dejected, in the hot sun, all the way from Center Street to 2000 North where I live. I think I got sunburned, too, and my hair was all gross from my sweaty helmet. I nearly got hit by a car once or twice and I am no longer as trustful of the wide shoulders. Plus, while Provo appears to be nearly flat, it does in fact slope downward to the South, which was quite helpful coasting on my way down to the Police Station but not quite as beneficial on the way back North. I did not obtain my much-needed bike license and will now have to make the same trip again on Monday. All in all, it was a rather unsuccessful day.

On an unrelated note, I can feel my wisdom teeth coming in the back of my mouth and I do not feel a significant increase or decrease in my IQ or my Wisdom Points. At some point I suppose I shall have to get them out; perhaps then I will discover whether or not the existence of these teeth have made an impact on my personal development.