A couple of weeks ago, my niece moved to the U.S. from Norway. She is a U.S. citizen, though she’s lived most of her life in Europe. She’s well educated, speaks excellent English, and knows how to drive on the right side of the road. So you would think that getting a driver's license and buying a car should go smoothly. Not so. Her experience reminded me of that old Belafonte song, “There’s a hole in the bucket.”

First step was to apply for a driver’s license. Can’t do that until you can show proof of insurance. Can’t get insurance on your own until you get something to insure. Because we knew she was planning to move here, we had held onto our old old station wagon when we got a newer car and planned to sell it to her.

So she’s ready for insurance, which, of course, requires a driver’s license. Most companies can’t even give you a quote unless they can type your driver’s license number into the appropriate field on their computer screen. We worked our way around that with a few agents who were able to put in her International license, but come to find out that her 12 years of accident-free driving in Europe doesn’t count for anything here. She has to be rated as an inexperienced driver. That means an insurance premium of nearly $1,000 for six months! And that’s for liability only! After days of calling around and talking with insurance agents, we found  a policy not so punitive, paid the fee, and finally had the proof-of-insurance paper she needed for the DMV.

We headed to the “tag” office (both my husband and I are on the title, so we both had to go to sign it off), assuming that we’d transfer the car into my niece’s name, so she had the title to go with the insurance when she went for her driver’s test. No. It doesn’t work that way. She needs a license before they can register the car. So off we went to the driver’s license bureau.

After filling out a series of papers and showing proof of insurance, she was allowed to take the written test. She passed and was allowed to take the driving exam, and passed with flying colors. License in hand, we headed back to the tag office to transfer the vehicle. That, of course, required that she get a new license plate and we turn in the old one. Good thing we had driven to the DMV in the car we were transferring! Mission accomplished — finally.

Now I know not every interaction involves a  “catch-22,” but many do. I couldn’t help thinking, “What if she didn’t have family? What if she couldn’t spend $1,000 to insure an old beater car? What if she didn’t speak fluent English? What if she’d bought the car from people who didn’t get the paperwork right?”

This experience has reminded me that life is more difficult for many people than one might think at first glance, and I should count my blessings — one of which is to head across the street to feed carrots to a horse who seems eager to see me. No paperwork required.