The Ninth Level of Hell OR the DMV

With moving comes great responsibility.  No wait, isn't that, with great powers comes great responsibility?  Or with great cupcakes comes great rolls of belly fat?  Or is it with great moron cats comes litter box scooping responsibility?  Oh hell, I'm meandering again.  Anyway, the short point is that I had to get a new driver's license.

These are all the people who didn't get to go in the sacred "BACK ROOM/AREA"
You can't tell from the back, but these people are very unhappy.
There was lots of grumbling.  Plus they didn't like the chairs very much.

HIM warned me that the wait at the local DMV (This stand for the Department of Motor Vehicles who actually owns our souls in the USA) was somewhat lengthy.  Let's say the word so that it shall be remembered forever.  Lengthy.  Let's also stretch the word out so that it sounds important and pious.  Leeeeeeennnnnnnnnngggggggtttttthhhhhhyyyyyy.  There, isn't that funnier?

I thought I'll go on a Tuesday, I'll go early, in fact, I'll get there really early, and I'll get in and out.  Hahaha.  My internal reasoning was thusly.  I am smarter than the DMV, I'm smarter than the state troopers, and I'm smarter than the governor of Alabama.  Hahahahaha.

Oh, how the mighty will fall.

The DMV opened at 8 AM.  I left at 7:15 AM and I thought I'd be first in line.  I was actually second in line.  Furthermore, there were a bunch of people who were still in their cars staring at me while I broiled in the sun at 7:25 AM.  (It's Alabama in June.  It's frickin' hot at 7:25 AM and the DMV obviously designed the building so that NO ONE will have any shade to stand in while they're waiting in line.)  (If someone succombs to sun stroke, the DMV does not have to give them a driver's license.)

This isn't what really happened in the DMV line, but it was a distinct possibility.

So other people got in line.  About 5 minutes until 8, the people in the cars got out and congregated around the front door.  I was all like, "OH, no you don't cut in line, you pansy-hiding-in-cars-nurfherders."  On the inside.  The lady who was in line three places behind me was somewhat more vocal.  She said loudly, and with explicit hand gestures, "Where they think they going?  The line starts back there!"  She repeated it three times in case the people in front didn't miss it.  I think she had a bull horn.

At 8 AM sharp the door was opened by a sixty-something female trooper wearing one blue slipper.  (I don't have to make stuff up.  Her other shoe was a brown loafer.  I think she had a foot booboo or she has early Alzheimers, one or the other.)  She announced that all the people who had appointments would go first.  (The pansy people hiding in cars had the appointments.)  I wanted to make an appointment but the slipper wearing trooper said that was only for people who were going to have a road test.  I was all like, "I'll take a road test if it means I get to go first."  You see, it turns out that there were 22 people having road tests at 8 AM that morning and they GOT TO GO FIRST!  (I would have given my left boobie if I meant to go first.  Not really, but it sounds good in print.)

We got to go in after the 22 other people got to go in.  (Those were all the people who didn't have sun stroke and third degree burns.  I'm going to get sun block after I finish this blog.)  So by the time I talked to the lady with the slipper and she examined my documents.  (I had to show her my old driver's license, my social security card, my passport, a signed contract from Satan, and a form giving over my first born child to the state before I got my number.)  I was number 24.  That doesn't sound so bad, right?  Hahahaha.  (I'm doing a lot of laughing in this blog, but it really isn't funny haha laughing.  It's if-I-don't-laugh-I'll-cry laughing.)

I took this picture because the sign above the television
says "Absolutely no firearms allowed."
Hmm.  I wonder why.  I think the DMV might
have had experience with this issue before.

So I sat down to wait.  But Trooper Slipper did say I should probably get a cup of coffee because it would be 30 minutes until a number was called.  It was actually one hour and ten minutes before a number was called.  Then it was number 22 and 23.  NOT frickin' 24.  During the hour and ten minutes I had to listen to an elongated diatribe from a young woman who had to be at work at 10:30 AM.  (It was about 10 at that time.)  I couldn't believe it but she was angrier than I was.  Steam started to flow from her ears.  (She was number 32.)  All she wanted to do was get an Alabama driver's license because she moved from Tennenesse.  She left about 10 minutes later, just as they finally called my number.  I felt like the angels had trumpeted my name.

I took this picture because of the 80s boof
and also because the number thingy at the
top DID NOT change for three frickin'
hours.  Then it finally went to 23.  I think
people thought they were trapped in a psychotic
episode.

Doing a little happy dance, I went into the other section where all the other people had gone and what did I find?  I had to wait in ANOTHER frickin' line.  And in this line you couldn't talk, use your cell phone, or fart.  (People were being tested nearby and they might loose their concentration.)  (Cressy went with me and shushed me when I tried to say something.  Also she tapped my hand when I took out the cell phone to take a picture and pointed to the no cell phones sign.  My OWN daughter ratting me out to the law.)

I sat there so long that I was beginning to think that my butt was going to have to be surgically removed from the seat.  Cressy and I couldn't talk so we made more and more elaborate funny faces at each other.  At one point in time I looked up and we had an audience of somewhat-amused fellow detainees who were watching our antics because they had nothing better to do.  (So glad I could lessen their waiting pain for a few moments.  I think Cressy beat me in the cross-eyed face making department.  Obviously that's what she learned in school last year.)

Finally, a genuine boofed trooper (stuck in the seventies or eighties I think, circa Dallas or Mary Tyler Moore) called me up.  I was daydreaming about escaping and almost missed it.  Then she wanted my documents again.  Sigh.  I did the eye test.  She wanted to know why I was wearing glasses if I didn't need them during the eye test.  I was grilled about my momentary vanity.  Then she asked me if I had driver's licenses in other states.  (That's a list.  I even forgot three that HIM reminded me about later.  I wonder if they'll come and take my license away because I didn't own up to a learner's permit in Oregon, a brief stint in New Mexico, and an USAEUR license I had when I was stationed in Germany.)  (And also Woody reminded me I had a brief license in Louisiana in between moves and I also had an Army license.  Hell, I'm getting old.  I don't remember half of what I actually had.)


This was a suggestion from the peanut gallery.
The trooper's identity has been
concealed to protect her boofiness.



On a bizarre side note that haunts me, Trooper Boof asked me my hair color, even though I was sitting in front of her and she was obviously not blind.  I said brown.  She eyed me carefully and said, "I don't think you can pull brown off, honey."  (She tried to downplay the insult by drawling the word, "Honey.")  Well, I wanted to go with brown.  She thought I should go with gray.  Since she had the uniform on and the computer on her side, she won.  That rotten bitch.

When I was done I walked out into the exterior area I embarrased my only daughter by whooping with joy.  Made everyone look up and then I checked out the number on the wall.  It was on 27.  Some of those people are probably still waiting there.