Don't let your registration expire in Germany

I did something stupid recently. I let my car registration expire.

In May I received the re-registration notification, but I didn't really know what to do with it at the time. I just put it aside and figured I'd deal with it later, but then I lost track of it under a pile of papers.

What I should have done was schedule an inspection on North Clay, then schedule a separate appointment for the registration, then renew my insurance. But did I do any of those things? No.

It was only when I went to fill up the car at the Hainerberg gas station on August 12th -- and didn't qualify for the cheaper rates -- that I realized it expired on July 25th.

On August 15th, I tried to get the inspection, but I was rejected because I had no proof of insurance -- it had expired along with my registration. I immediately renewed my insurance, and scheduled another appointment.
On August 17th, I learned that my insurance was unacceptable, because I needed to get a "digital confirmation." I had to call the insurance company again.

On August 18th, I did a walk-in. I had to turn in my license plates, and got a temporary registration with temporary license plates. That was fine, but in order to get the license plates off of my car (and not knowing what I was doing), I ended up ripping off the brackets that held the plates. I would have to get new brackets.
On Saturday, August 19th, I took a bus to the nearest car parts store and bought replacement brackets.

On August 21st, I got another inspection, but the car failed because there was "oil on the chassis" and a couple of other issues. I was also warned by the military police that I needed to zip-tie the temporary license plates to the car or risk it being towed. That day, I scheduled the car repairs at a nearby Pit Stop on the 30th, but I would have to find someplace else to clean the oil off the chassis.
On August 22nd, I took the car to the self-help auto-repair place on post, but cleaning the chassis myself was unfeasible considering I didn't know what I was doing. I could pay to have someone there do it, but I would need to correct the other problems first.

On August 24th, I dropped the car off at a place that does detailing, but they said that it wouldn't do any good to clean the "oil on the chassis" problem because the real problem was an oil leak.

By this point, I was super frustrated. I spoke to Pit Stop again to see if they could fix the leak when I did the other repairs, and they said sure. So on August 30th, I dropped the car off at 8:00, amnd they fixed everything. Things seemed to finally be going my way.
Sure enough, on September 1st I passed the inspection, turned in my temporary plates, and got my permanent plates. This was just in time, because -

On September 2nd, I left for Armenia.

So yeah -- don't let your registration expire in Germany. It is waaaaaaay more trouble than you'd think it would be.