Livin' Large at the DMV
(copyright 2007)

Had a couple "Motor Vehicles" issues that I've been putting off. The one, to prove to the state of Maryland that I no longer own a certain car that they are convinced needs insurance, could have been taken care of by mail or email, but no, they didn't want that: I either had to cater the documents personally or fax 'em in. Fogettaboutit. No way was I gonna actually go to the DMV. And as for option number two, I'm so over faxes. No way. So I didn't do it. I figured, there's no liability on the car, no harm done, so they can await my convenience. The other issue at-large was to renew my drivers license. Yeah, yeah, I got the mail-in renewal forms months before, but after filling out all the docs I discovered that it meant a visit to an optometrist to prove that I can still see. Too complicated. So I blew it off.

Time flies when you procrastinate, and a few months later some store clerk announces to me that my drivers license has expired. Oh, hell, I guess I'd better go deal with that stupid insurance thing...

Naturally, I swing by a Starbucks before pulling into the DMV. This Starbucks is in an old bank or fast food building, you know, one of those parking lot islands. There's one car ahead of me, so I take to the drive in. The Starbucks girl says something through the speaker, and I ask for the tallest damned coffee they have. Cool. But, man, that boy in front of me is slow. Here comes a coffee. Wait, there's more. Some money. Another coffee. And he's still just sitting there. Got your coffee, now go! Finally, some forward movement. But he stops a quarter the way out, fixing his coffee or his change or getting bitched at by that woman next him, or I don't know what except that he's left his ass standing between me and my coffee. Move, dammit! Finally.

I pull up. "That boy needs some more, coffee," I say to the Starbucks girl who looks back at me blandly. Whatever. She goes and gets my coffee. Oh, wait, I need a water, too. She brings the coffee first, places it on ledge, and heads off for my water. I grab the coffee, and -- woh. Wait, that's a "tall," not the "tallest damned coffee you have." "Dammit," I'm thinking, "do I upset the growing line behind me and insist on getting what I want, or do I just go?" I insist. "I meant your tallest coffee, you know, your biggest one."

This causes tremendous confusion, especially since most of the workers aren't speaking any English that I know, and, I realize now, I'd forgotten that at Starbucks tall is small, medium is big, and large is "twenty." The girl is nice enough, anyway, especially after I tell her why I need the biggest damned coffee. She sighs and says that her mom just spent eight hours at the DMV the other day. Eight hours! Yes, she understands. Oh, my.. Out of sympathy and, I suppose, for my waay-generous tip, most of which managed to fall into the jar that sat on edge on the window sill, she switches my "tall" (i.e. small) coffee for a big one, you know, their tallest cup, a "twenty."

Meanwhile, the line grows behind me. They're all thinking, "God I hate bald people who order tall coffees at Starbucks when they mean large."

The first thing I always notice at the DMV is how stupid the drivers are. Either there are morons out trying to reinstate their license, rice burning, goatee-types trying to get the oversized ground effects spoilers over the maze of speed bumps without breaking loose the duct tape, or just general idiots, its seems that driving through the DMV parking lot is a test unto itself. These inherent traits are magnified by my DMV's parking lot, which was designed by a sadist: the lanes are narrow, especially at the entrances, and the parking slots are over-sized, which means the lot is always full. (Where are the oversized slots at my local shopping digs???)

So my mood is already bad as I get out of the car and spill coffee all over my seat. Plastic lid wasn't on tight. No matter, just a little coffee gone, now down to the "room for milk" level that I fought off with the Starbucks girl. Balancing my coffee, my checkbook, and my cell phone on my manilla folder with all the files, I hustle to the walkway, the cell phone sliding happily about from the coffee to my hand. I balance it perfectly, like that toy with a metal-ball and a moving table-top full of treacherous holes. As I jump the curb to the walkway, I learn that the same bastard who designed the parking lot laid out the sidewalk: it brushes against the building and has a hedgerow immediately to the other side. I don't know if they have this old bag, about 4-feet 10 and smoking Salems, walk the walk all day, but there she was. I swear she was there three years ago when I was last there.

I came prepared with a 400-pager, so I was almost disappointed by the small line at the info desk. Nevertheless, there's plenty annoying about, including the Au Pair chicks from somewhere very Eastern European who seem to be laughing at the pictures on the wall -- shots I know well, as they were sold to the DMV by the great Automobile Quarterly (for whom I write). I'm getting really annoyed with them, thinking that they're thinking that these great Delahayes and Bugattis on the wall are somehow amusing. But the dude behind me ups the annoying scale and starts yelling at his cell phone in Hebrew. After a quick five, I'm at the head of the line, and the Wrapped-Woman there motions for me to approach. She doesn't look at me, but I come up, anyway. She's busy filling out some forms, so I stand there and wait. Meanwhile, the Au Pairs have been sent off to the Administration office because the clerk next to Wrapped-Woman had no idea how to deal with them. The Hebrew yeller is next, and he's getting his business done while Wrapped-Woman fills out boxes. Finally she looks up, as if I'm bothering her. Unfortunately, she's hardly annoying, and tells me exactly what I need to do. I'm F-11 at the "Insurance Issues" desk and A-74 for drivers licenses.

Over at Insurance Issues, a rather pleasant young lady and I get to talking about coffee. She manages this while photocopying all my documents, faxing them somewhere, and nodding in agreement to my diatribe about how tall is small and medium is large and so on. My coffee's now down about halfway. Before I can finish about the role of coffee in the development of Western Civilization, she's done, and I'm back over at Drivers Licenses. They're up to A-64 now.

So I take my seat, and am met with similar philosophy to the parking lot and walkway: designed by bastards. The seats are made not to hold a coffee. There's not a flat surface around. and no tables, of course. So I balance my tallest coffee on the highest point of the seat, and just kind of wait for it to spill. No luck. Meanwhile, I get to my reading, which is paced by the "bings" of the kiosk system, now paging A-65, over and over. I like my book, and I'm rather happy now, what with my coffee, my read, and my conquest of the No Drinks Seats. I get no more than a couple pages before they're binging away at A70. Here I remember that I left my check book in the car, probably having dropped it as I balanced the cell phone and coffee on the manilla folder. A-71 bings now, so I get to moving.

I head out the main entrance, and get face-smacked by Salems and assorted other smokes. Old Smoking Lady is still there, now with some comrades to better feed that two-foot ashtray. So I pull a "U-eey" (how does one spell that?) and sneak out down the side of the building through an obviously well-used emergency exit that does not sound an alarm. Back to the car, and no checkbook. Probably left it at home, guess. So I have to run back to make A-74, and hope they'll take my credit card. Of course they do. Even the IRS takes Visa/MC these days. I brush by Old Smoking Lady, whose friends put up no defense, and just as I start contemplating how to balance my now 3/4-empty Large Coffee, A-74 is bung for slot number 3.

DMV Lady in slot three is enormously efficient. Other than to ask me to look down so as to pronounce my aging, double chin, she's a model for bureaucratic anomalies. She's all business, hardly looks at me as I whine that the DMV has actually been faster than my coffee, and that I barely had time to get through the preface of my book. She just takes care of business, and before I know it she's telling me to go finish my coffee back on the bench, and that I have two minutes before my new licence is produced to finish it. Two minutes, practically on the spot. She calls me name, asks if I've finished my coffee, hands me my new license, and smiles.

- Bromley, Jun/2007