Renewed and it Feels So Good

After two days and DMV offices in two cities, I got through the gauntlet that is renewing one’s drivers' license.

In conversations with others at the two offices, the general consensus is that the system, though fairly quick and relatively uncomplicated in the past, is now neither quick nor uncomplicated.

Walking through the doors about 20 minutes early for my appointment at the local office yesterday, seeing a gaggle of people packed like sardines, not trusting the atmosphere, I immediately masked up.

I was the only masked up person in the place but didn’t care about the stares. There’s just too much stuff going around to risk it.

Walking up to a clerk, saying I have an appointment, I was asked for a "code".

Saying I knew nothing of a code, I was unceremoniously told, without further ado by a little Gen Zer who looked like she resented having to work for a living, to "stand over there" ...... "over there" being a line of about 20 people leaning up against the wall.

My appointment time came and went, without the "over there" line moving an inch, so I walked over to a different clerk, questioned if I was in the correct spot inasmuch as I had an appointment.

He explained there was paperwork to be filled out.

It seems I had the option to fill out said paperwork online at home, which paperwork would have generated a code that supposedly would have moved me up the line ─ from "over there" to speedy appointment status.

The little bitch Gen Zer, sitting there doing nothing but staring into space, couldn’t take a moment out of her resentment to tell me that?

At any rate, I decided not to waste hours of my life in a line that wasn’t moving ─ walked out, went home, filled out the paperwork online, went to reschedule to another day, but learned the nearest appointment available was a month away — mid December!

So what happens if, in mid-December, I don’t pass on the first try? Do I have to reschedule again? Come back in yet another month, by which time my license would have expired?

DMV is now worse than my doctor’s office.

Every time something comes up that I need to schedule an appointment with her, I get a message she’s booked up, not available to schedule for three months. In which case, I research holistic methods of healing what ails me— usually the writings of The Sleeping Prophet Edgar Cayce, with sometimes remarkable results.

I’m actually better off healing myself anyway, because the doctors at the medical center just don’t seem all that swift. They never solve problems, just prescribe medication without delving into what exactly the problem is, and there is no follow up.

So, anyway, I booked the mid-December appointment but then thought, since it would take another 30 days to book an appointment should I not pass, I logged in to schedule a backup appointment at the Redlands office.

Redlands was booked up until late December!!!

Good grief!

I opted out of a backup appointment.

But then thinking it best to have that second appointment just-in-case, I went to book it, found an opening for this morning had popped up at Redlands, cancelled this morning’s workout, and jumped on it.

Arriving 30 minutes early for my appointment, I could not find parking on the small parking lot and found signs on the lots of nearby businesses that indicated "no DMV parking" and threats of tows. Consequently, I parked about half mile away at Citrus Plaza, in front of Target, switched from sandals to walking shoes, and hiked to the office.

There was a line for appointments, a line for without appointments and angry people, rolling eyes, in both because the idiot checking us in was an obvious fool.

So annoying the idiot was that the guy in line ahead of me told me he wanted to do him physical harm.

I cautioned my line mate to "Be calm. Don’t turn into a male Karen".

He maintained, and we both eventually got through the gauntlet with tickets issued by the idiot, only to sit where told to and sit and sit and sit.

While waiting, I added two new pokémon to my poke deck.

While I was killing time playing Pokémon GO, my line mate was getting antsy, got up, sought out a supervisor.

All of a sudden there was a flurry of activity.

The supervisor came over and began checking the numbers on everyone’s tickets (about 20+ of us), saying the idiot had logged is in as waiting for service at the Riverside office.

We were in Redlands.

Things went pretty quick after that, as it was all hands-on deck; clerks at every window stepping in to service us.

I passed the visual, which I wasn't sure I would because of eyestrain caused by close needle work.

There was a quickly handled minor problem with the camera when I stood for a new photo, which prompted me to say to the clerk, "What else can go wrong?"

Fortunately, the what else wasn’t failing the written — I passed by the skin of my teeth (missed the maximum allowed 5) because of questions like how many feet between cars parallel parked … how many feet between a car and motorcycle, yada yada yada.

It was a difficult test. One woman failed by missing 8. Another missed 11.

The what else that could go wrong was ……… it started raining and here I was a half mile from my car.

A nice lady, waiting for her test results, said she and her husband would drive me to my car but, after 3 hours, I was ready to get out of there.

So here I am back in my unit telling the tale, not drenched enough to get ill I hope, renewed and it feels so good not to have to face that again for another 5 years.