I just had 24 hours’ worth of creativity sucked out of me through my nose. The jokes my parents and grandparents told were true. I spent two and a half hours at the DMV getting my driver’s license renewed.
This has to be a government conspiracy designed to make you feel old, tired and beaten. Probably so you don’t notice the extra property taxes you’re paying so the high school can have a parking garage. No other building in town has a parking garage. But I digress.
I had been in line for about an hour when I had to say, “The line moved much faster before we had computers and the internet. That was when I first got in line. I think they switched over since I got here.”
People started to laugh. Oh, that was not good. That was too much encouragement. You know I couldn’t keep my mouth shut then.
I started making comments like, “I was able to cross the border in Berlin back in the old Soviet days faster than this. You know they should put in a Starbuck. Sell coffee, tea and some little sandwiches. The money they would collect we could pay off our debt to China. If they added those little airline size bottles of booze, we’d be out of debt in no time.”
The laughter kept coming.
By the time I got close to the front of the line I was saying, “Cell phones? I remember when we didn’t have answering machines. If you weren’t home your phone just rang and you wouldn’t even know anyone had called and you didn’t care. I’m too old to stand in a line this long. I have less than half my life left and the last two and a half hours just ticked away at the DMV.”
It was taking half an hour to process each person. That’s people with the correct paperwork, identification, and money ready to go.
“You know they told us computers would make everything faster. They lied.” I kept up my monologue. I had the place rolling. “What are they doing up there? Definitely collecting too much information.”
“One more person to go,” I announced. “I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Freedom was so close I could smell it. One person left for lunch, leaving only one person to help the whole room for the next hour. Great, but what did I care? I was at the front of the line. I was person known as Next.
They asked the lady at the counter to put her thumb on the electronic display in front of her. Zip, a laser scanned her thumb print. At this point I was so beaten I wasn’t going to complain about being fingerprinted like a common criminal.
Keeping my mouth shut for the last five minutes so I can just get out of here. That’s what I was doing.
One thumb down, thirty more seconds and it’s my turn.
“Put your thumb back. That one didn’t scan,” the clerk said. “Try wiggling it.” She continued clicking away at her machine. “No, that didn’t do it. Try turning it a little to the right. No,” she frowned. “Straighten it out. No, that didn’t work either. Bend it a little. I’ll come around and show you.”
No, no, I said to myself, do not slide off of that stool. Get back on the other side of the counter. Just five more minutes, just keep your mouth shut for five more minutes.
I started stamping one foot. I’m sure I gave everyone the impression I needed to use the ladies room stat.
The clerk grasped the woman’s hand and started twisting it. “No,” she said, squinting at the computer screen she had spun around. She continued maneuvering the woman’s hand back and forth and side to side.
Suddenly I couldn’t take it anymore. “Is this thumb thing mandatory?” I asked. “What if she was missing a hand? What would you do? I’ve had MRIs that didn’t take this long.”
The woman sighed. The clerk glared at me. The security guard stepped forward. I shook my head. “Just couldn’t keep my mouth shut for another five minutes,” I said to the room.
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