A few weeks ago, I received one of the most dreaded pieces
of mail an American can receive. I was being summoned to the DMV. My driver’s
license was about to expire, and if I wanted to continue to operate motor
vehicles legally, I was required to actually go to a DMV location to take a
vision test, take a new picture, and most importantly, I suspect, pay $32.00.
My immediate reaction was, “Nooooo! Not the DMV!!! Why do I
have to get a new license, anyway? I’ve only had this one a few years. Nothing
has changed!” My wife then pointed out that I had a full head of hair in the picture,
so it had obviously been a few more than a few years. She might have a point.
As I was admiring my hair in the photo, a thought occurred to me. “Man, I was
good looking with hair…” Just kidding, that’s not what I thought… What I
thought was, “Why am I smiling in this picture?”
Only two groups of people ever see your driver’s license.
People you are buying something from, and police officers. I couldn’t care less
what the Safeway clerk and the bartender think of my picture, and I really
don’t care what the cops think of it either, but if I were to get pulled over
by a patrolman, I don’t think I want him looking at a jovial smiling idiot
picture of me. I want the picture to be useful to me in some way. I will no
doubt be trying to talk my way out of whatever traffic violation he has me dead
to rights on, so I want that picture to be helping my case.
But, what look should I go for in the new picture?
Sad and pathetic? Never good.
Surprised? Like, “Wow, I can’t believe I did that! That is
literally the first stop sign I have ever rolled in my whole life. I don’t know
what came over me!” Probably not.
What about tired? No… exhausted! That’s the ticket. Or
should I say, my ticket to no ticket. My story will be this: With the seven
little mouths to feed at home, I am forced to work three jobs (due to the
economy and so forth) just to make ends meet. Meat. There’s something we
haven’t had in a while. Things are tough, but we don’t complain. We have our
health, for the most part, although, momma’s cough is getting worse. How much
do these tickets normally run, anyway? I guess we could take it down to one
meal a day for a while to pay for the ticket, but with junior being as skinny
as he is now, I sure hope it doesn’t take too long to pay off. I know I broke
the law, and I hate to be a pain, but I’m almost late for my shift at the
manure factory, and I really can’t afford to lose that job, due to all the
aforementioned reasons… Yes, exhausted it is!
The letter I received in the mail strongly suggested that I
make an appointment at my local DMV branch. Based on my past DMV waiting room
experiences, I thought an appointment sounded like a really good idea, so I
went on the DMV’s handy website and used their appointment system. I clicked on
the DMV branch in my town and they gave me an appointment time for three weeks later
on a Thursday at 9:10 A.M. Now, normally I’m working on Thursdays at 9:10 A.M.,
but I took it, no questions asked. I had the option to pass on that one and see
what else was available, but that option scared me to death. We’re talking
about the DMV here. If I tried for something else, it was surely going to be
worse, and there would be no going back. The next available appointment was
probably ten weeks after my license would expire. Thursday at 9:10 A.M. it is!
I walked into the brightly-lit, modern-looking DMV office at
9:05 A.M. There were about 8 or 9 DMV employees behind the counters, and no
less than 75 people sitting forlornly in the waiting area that consisted of two
large banks of plastic chairs on either side of the spacious facility. There
they sat, dead silent, staring straight ahead, each holding a paper ticket with
a letter and a number. A woman holding A32 was sitting next to a man with G14. Holy
crap, I’m going to be here all day! What was the point of the appointment?
I stood in the three-person line at the ticket dispensing
lady, and when I got to the counter, she asked if I had an appointment. I said,
“Yes!” with a non-DMV-ish level of hopefulness in my voice. She smirked and
gave me ticket H42 and told me to have a seat. I walked to the waiting area
with the proper DMV-ish level of dejectedness. I will be here well past dinner
time.
My butt was not in the molded plastic seat for more than 15
seconds when “H42. Now serving number H42 at window 12,” could be heard echoing
through the facility. H42! That’s me! I sprang out of my seat with renewed non-DMV-ish
vigor, and stepped quickly away from the waiting hordes over to window 12.
The lady behind window 12 asked me a few questions and had
me sign my form in her presence, swearing under penalty of law that I was me
and I was being truthful to the best of my knowledge. Then she took my
thumbprint, and had me write her a check for $32.00. She took my check and then
asked me to cover my left eye and read line 3 on letter chart B hanging from
the ceiling behind her desk. I contemplated asking her why she took my money
before she verified that I was able to see well enough to renew my license, but
I figured I already knew the answer to that question, so I just went ahead and
read line 3 to her.
When I was done with the left eye, she apparently had some
more typing to do, so there was a lull in the conversation. I figured it was a
good time to ask her a few driver’s license-related questions that had been on
my mind. Namely, how come somebody who doesn't have a driver’s license
qualifies to be your passenger in the carpool lane? I mean, if they can’t
drive, you're not carpooling, you're just being a taxi service. And what
qualifies no-passenger Prius hybrids and motorcycles for the carpool lane, and
not my Partial Zero-Emission 4-Cylinder Camry? I mean, I burn less gas than the
passenger-less guy in the big pickup truck. Shouldn’t I get to use the bonus
lane for at least part of the time? And, really, when we get right down to it, shouldn't
the people who pay the most taxes get to use the carpool lane whenever they
want? I mean, they paid for it, right?
She just looked at me blankly and said, “Please proceed to
the picture area.”
Okeydokey.
The moment of truth. I have been working on my “exhausted
and earnestly struggling to make ends meet” look for three weeks.
There were three people ahead of me in the picture line, but
it moved very quickly. When it was my turn, the picture lady asked for my
paperwork, and then said, “Step to the blue screen place your feet on the marks
on the floor look straight ahead OK done.”
What? Did you take it already?
“You should receive your new license in the mail in three to
four weeks please exit to your right have a nice day next.”
Dammit! I didn’t even have time to do my exhausted look. I
have no idea what look I was doing. I don’t even know at what point the picture
was taken. Maybe I’ll end up with surprised. That’s better than nothing.
Oh, well. Even though the picture didn’t turn out like I had
hoped, the upside was I was in and out of the building in 11 minutes. Every one
of those 75 people were still sitting there when I walked out the door. Make an
appointment, people!
I would have been in and out in more like eight or nine minutes,
but I stopped to question the security guard at the exit door. He didn’t know
anything about the carpool lane, either.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2013 Marc Schmatjen
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