Adventures at the DMV

I had to go to the DMV the other day, and I didn’t have an appointment. Usually this means a few hours descending into the lower pits of DMV hell. So to prepare myself I decided to spend extra time reading my Bible and praying for everyone and everything including the 10/40 window. Furthermore, I would bring with me a good book on missionaries to remind me of those who have faced a great deal of suffering and loss but have still impacted the world for Jesus Christ. This way, when I would look at my current plight in DMV hell, I wouldn’t think much of it compared to the real missionaries that I was reading about.

Now, spiritually armed for the battle, I felt prepared for whatever the DMV could throw at me. When you enter the DMV, you have take a number, just like at the butcher’s shop. My ticket was G110. As I looked up to see where the number count was on the overhead t.v.s, the loud speaker went off and the voice said, “Now serving G043.” Good thing I brought a book. I initially thought that I only had 67 spots to wait, but I quickly figured out they were running three other letter categories at the same time (e.g., J012, H054, C023, etc). So 67 spots was more like 1,720.

As I was walking around looking for a seat I noticed that not only were there no seats left but there wasn’t much standing room either. Everywhere I stood I was either in someone’s way or it looked like I was waiting in another line and was asked to move. Finally, a couple of seats opened up and I sat down and started reading my book. About a couple of minutes into my reading, three babies simultaneously started crying in my section. One of them was right next to me, but I blocked all of that out like I was shooting a free-throw in a road game and kept reading. I was waiting so long I finished my book and started reading some of the pamphlets. One of the pamphlets at the bottom actually said, “Throughout this handbook, the term ‘thumb print’ will be used to mean a thumb print or finger print, if you have no thumbs.” Does this occur often enough where you need a footnote? Are there that many people in California walking around without thumbs out there? It just makes you wonder, “What in the world are people doing to cause their thumbs from being severed from their hands?”

When I finished reading I gave up my seat to a mother with a child. I figured the child could play with the kid that was crying next to me. Wandering around the room looking for a seat I managed to find one in a place, which I dubbed the “G-section” because most of us had G numbers and we were sitting in front of a window serving G(s). Since I had finished my book by this point, I started talking to the people around me. The older gentleman to my right who was probably in his 50s, named Bill, was trying to get his license because it was suspended. He squinted, trying to read a form he had to fill out and pulled the paper to within a half of an inch from his face because he couldn’t see it very well. “It’s very comforting to know that I’ll be out on the road with him”, I thought.

Another guy two seats to my left, who looked like he just got out of jail, also had a suspended license and was trying to get it back. The lady to my immediate left was just glad that the numbers were getting closer to the ones on our calling tickets. We were watching the monitor like we were playing Keno at a restaurant in Vegas. There were about five spots left before it would be our turn when the guy who had been serving the G tickets got up from his desk walked away and looked like he was going to hang himself. He didn’t come back and no one replaced him. (California budget cuts, I guess.) Great.

Naturally, I wasn’t really concerned with whether or not he was really going to hang himself. My worry was how they were going to start up the G-section again. By this time the G-section had built up some nice camaraderie and everyone was cheering for me because I had the next ticket. It took a while, but once the DMV started up the Gs again and my number was called, my new- found friends cheered like I was selected to come down on “The Price is Right.” My point in all this: all in all it could be not such a bad day at the DMV if you have the right perspective and make a few friends while you’re there.