Notes from the DMV

   “Hey you. You need to sign in before you sit down.” This was what one of the Department of Motor Vehicles ladies barked at Alex as he stood looking around for an open seat amongst all the others, seated in uncomfortable-looking, plastic chairs, heads down, waiting for their turn to speak with someone at the front desk about titles, tags, licenses, or God-knows-what.

   The waiting area was small, packed, and painted a sickly avocado green. The room had a certain odor too. Alex’s nostrils flared. He recognized it as the smell of human suffering.

   As she yelled out to Alex, the DMV lady was pointing her crooked finger toward the far side of the room, over by the photography area, where people were being positioned, one at a time, against a green screen backdrop to get their driver’s license mug shots.
 
   There was an attractive but awkward young girl getting her picture taken there now. She looked scared as hell, raising a trembling hand to sweep an invisible hair from her brow. Alex figured she was probably sixteen and getting her first driver’s license. She was pretty but frail and doe-eyed, an Audrey Hepburn type. Audrey’s green, quarter-zip with her high school logo embroidered upper left, was unfortune, thought Alex. The green screen would be playing some tricks with that.
 
   Alex made his way over into the general vicinity of the photography area and stood looking around, but saw nothing that had to do with “signing in.” So, he shrugged and blank-faced to indicate his confusion.
 
   “Over there!” the DMV lady crowed, stabbing with her finger a bit more aggressively for emphasis. “At the kiosk. You need to sign in and get your number.” The DMV lady’s flowery, pink blouse was throwing Alex for a loop. It belonged on some sweet, gentle grandmother type who smells like gardenias and cookie dough, not on some hardened, quasi-bureaucrat standing behind plexiglass, sharpening her knives.
 
   “Oh, OK, I see it,” Alex lied. He took a few more steps in the general direction that the irate finger was indicating. Alex noticed that everyone in the waiting area had snapped up from their stupors to look at him. He was the star of the latest show in the DMV waiting room.
 
   Audrey collected her newly minted driver’s license. It had spit out quickly from a little machine next to the camera just a few seconds after her picture was snapped. “Oh no,” she said. “Can I get a re-take? It looks like I’m just a floating head.”
 
   “No re-takes,” the photographer said.
 
   Dejected and a little teary, holding her license in both hands and studying it, Audrey walked over to a woman who was presumably her mother and whisper-whimpered something that Alex couldn’t hear. The woman put her arm around Audrey, gave her a squeeze and said, “It’s OK. They never turn out good, sweetie. Have you ever seen mine?”
 
   Over along the wall next to the green screen, Alex discovered a nicely organized display of pamphlets and driving manuals – oddly all in Spanish – but that was about it. So, he looked over to the plexiglass wall where DMV Lady and three of her cohorts were stationed and made another bank face and shrug.
 
   “Right there! Right in front of you!” another DMV lady shouted. This lady was the one stationed closest to Alex, and she was pointing a little more precisely, at an iPad-looking device that was leaning haphazardly against the end of the plexiglass barricade that separated the DMV workers from the mob.
 
   The original DMV lady had given up on Alex. She returned to her regular duties, disposing of a heavily tattooed woman with a backpack and calling out, “Forty-two!” in the same shrill voice that she had used on Alex.
 
   A guy in a plaid shirt and seed cap stood up from his plastic chair in the waiting area. He nervously shuffled a handful of wrinkled papers as he made his way up to the front desk. About halfway to the desk, the original DMV lady shouted the number again, which caused the guy to stumble and drop one of his papers. Apparently, plaid shirt guy was not being officially recognized as forty-two just yet. He would need to get a move on.
 
   All eyes in the waiting area shifted away from Alex to the newly unfolding drama. Breathing a sigh of relief at no longer being watched, scrutinized, Alex picked up the tablet device and figured out how to sign in. It was easy enough. The screen displayed a simple form asking for name and purpose of visit. For the name entry, Alex typed in “Ozzy Osbourne,” and for purpose Alex selected “Driver’s License” from a drop-down menu. When Alex clicked “Enter” the tablet displayed the following: You’re number is 62. Please take a seat and wait for the number to be called. The “62” was displayed in giant-sized font. Alex mumbled the number to himself for memory purposes and chuckled at the typo.
 
   Alex selected the plastic chair that plaid shirt guy had vacated, blending right in with everyone else in the waiting area. As he sat down, he decided to consciously avoid the trap that had ensnared his fellow plebes. Instead of looking down at his paperwork or phone, or head snapping whenever the DMV ladies shouted, he casually scanned the whole of the front desk area, looking for clues about how he’d navigate the system once his number was called.
 
   Unfortunately, there was not much to be gleaned, beyond what he had already had surmised. The DMV ladies looked to be a mean lot. Everyone who approached the front desk met the same fate: They were all visibly on guard, using lots of words, nervously jumping through hoops regardless of how prepared they appeared to be.
 
   Alex had found out that his driver’s license had expired earlier that day, when he attempted to get a rental car.
 
   “Sorry sir, but your driver’s license appears to be expired, and I’m afraid that we won’t be able to get you a rental car until that’s sorted out,” said the friendly agent at the local Enterprise rental car agency.
 
   “Eeks. Sorry about that,” said Alex. “I hadn’t realized that it had expired. I’ll head over to the DMV and see if I can get it fixed.”
 
   “Good luck. We’re open ‘till five,” said the rental car agent.
 
   After about thirty minutes of waiting and shifting around in his uncomfortable plastic chair, the original DMV lady called out, “Sixty-two.”
 
   She was Alex’s last pick, based on his initial encounter with her. He had ranked his preferences for all four DMV ladies while waiting. His first pick, the one he hoped would call his number, was a sturdy blonde, second from left at the front desk. She didn’t look friendly, per se, but she seemed efficient, having processed about twice the number of people as the other DMV ladies during the time Alex sat waiting. Alex’s second pick was the lady on the far right who was doing double duty as the photographer, and who had pointed him to the sign-in tablet earlier. She was a mean old biddy, for sure, but at least she had provided him with some sensible advice. In third place was the lady whom Alex thought looked a lot like his mom. Alex was vaguely curious about her, but not enough to rank her very high.
 
   Alex reluctantly approached the first window at the front desk to face the original lady who had scolded him about getting his number when he first arrived. As he approached, she felt the need to shout out his number again. It was a pattern with her.
 
   “Well…,” Alex began when he arrived at the desk, facing his nemesis.
 
   “I need your driver’s license, Mr. Osbourne,” DMV Lady #1 interrupted.
 
   “OK. Here it is,” Alex replied, sliding his driver’s license into the narrow slot beneath the plexiglass divider.
 
   “Says here your name is Alex Carson, not Ozzy Osbourne,” she said.
 
   “I typed in Ozzy Osbourne when I signed in,” Alex explained.
 
   “Number sixty-two!” DMW Lady #1 announced loudly to the room, craning her head to look beyond Alex at the others in the waiting area.
 
   “I’m number sixty-two,” Alex said.
 
   “But you’re not Ozzy Osbourne.”
 
   “No, I’m Alex Carson. I was just joking. You know, Ozzy Osbourne.”
 
   “You’re supposed to type in your real name.” The DMV lady was salty.
 
   “I understand,” said Alex. “I was just kidding.”
 
   “I should send you to the back of the line.”
 
   “I need to renew my driver’s license, Miss . . . what’s your name?”
 
   “I’m Miss Cooper. I should send you to the back of the line.”
 
   “I hope you don’t need to do that. I’m Alex Carson. I need to get my driver’s license renewed, Ms. Cooper.”
 
   “Your current driver’s license expired last week, if Alex Carson’s indeed your real name,” she replied, with a raised eyebrow.
 
   “Yes, that’s why I’m here. I’m hoping to get my license renewed. I hadn’t realized that I let it slip.”
 
   “There’s an additional fee for renewing an expired license. Do you have another form of ID?”
 
   “How about a credit card?”
 
   “Yes, a credit card’s acceptable.”
 
   Alex slipped a credit card through to Ms. Cooper.
 
   Ms. Cooper typed away for a few minutes, while Alex stood watched the magic unfold.
 
   After fast-typing for some time, Ms. Cooper stated, “You’ll need to update to a Smart ID.”
 
   “What’s that?” Alex asked.
 
   “A Smart ID is a more official form of identification. You’ll be required to have one to check in for a flight starting next year. I suggest you update to a Smart ID.”
 
   “I was hoping for a driver’s license for a car, not a plane,” explained Alex.
 
   “You can get a legacy driver’s license if you want, instead of a Smart ID. But you won’t be able to use it for air travel after next year.”
 
   “That sounds fine. I’ll just use my passport when I fly.”
 
   “Passport? Do you have your passport with you now?”
 
   “No,” said Alex.
 
   “We recommend updating to a Smart ID.”
 
  “No thanks. I’ll just go with the old-fashioned style.”
 
   “Your choice. It’ll be thirty-six dollars, including your fee for letting your license expire, and your fee for your new photo.”
 
   Alex wrote out a check, and as he slipped it under the plexiglass, he asked, “I have to take a new picture, eh?”
 
   “Yes. Go over there and wait. Your new number is eighty-nine.”
 
   “One more question. I was hoping to pick up a driving manual for my son. He’s fifteen and I guess it would be good for him to start studying. But all the manuals over there are in Spanish. Can I pick up an English manual for him?”
 
   “We don’t have printed manuals in English. It’s all online now. Your son can access the state driving manual online and study it on his phone.”
 
   Alex pondered this and made a “humph” sound.
 
   “It’s better to have it online.” Ms. Cooper said as she stamped Alex’s check and pushed some paperwork across to him. “You’ll get your driver’s license photo over there.” She nodded toward the photography area where Alex had wandered about earlier.
 
   Alex wasn’t so sure that an online manual sounded better, but he nodded acceptance, took his leave, and started heading back over to the green screen area. He was glad that he wasn’t wearing a green shirt.
 
   Luckily, there was no wait for photography. As he was walking over, the sturdy blonde DMV lady announced, “Eighty-nine for photography.”
 
   “That’s me,” said Alex, signaling with a half-wave. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was 4:30. This might work, Alex thought to himself. Just enough time to get back over to the rental car place.
 
   “Great," said the meanie photographer. "Take a seat in front of the green screen. You’ll have to remove your glasses. And try not to blink. This’ll just take a second, Mr. Osbourne.”

   – O.M. Kelsey