When Bureaucracy Happens to Good People

We just go about our business.  Fairly.  Innocently.  Quietly.  And, without warning and perhaps with a great deal of malice, wham!  We all eventually get upended by bullshit.  The kind of senseless mayhem that can only be conjured up by one of our various government bureaus.  Indignity personified.

Yes, folks, today, I am talking about the Department of Motor Vehicles.

There will now be a five second pause while you all silently cringe.

The mere words that encompass the thought of the dreaded "DMV" send horrific chills up everybody's spines.  Long lines.  Snarky employees.  And being among the scourge of society.  Slobs that make Walmart shoppers look like cafe society.

Sadly, I had to go there recently.  Not once, not twice, but three times.  My shower soap is working overtime as I desperately try to get the feeling of filth off me.  Here comes my sorry tale of woe, which I lived to tell.  Barely.

In retrospect, the situation couldn't have started more benignly.    Back in December, I got mail from the California DMV.  With my birthday coming, I was due for a driver's license renewal.  Simple enough.  The only slight curveball was that, for this particular renewal, I couldn't do it via the mail or on-line.  I actually had to make an in-person appearance at an office.  I reason to myself that this is the government's way of giving their sub-freezing-IQ-ed employees something to do.  You know.  The skilled laborers.  Those folks who are experts at stamping papers and removing staples.

The small iota of good news with the California DMV is that they welcome people to make appointments ahead of time.  You can easily cut the long line in the parking lot and not be subjected to body odor and broken English.  Since I don't fancy an issue with my renewal, I make an on-line date for the first week of January at the DMV near my office in Van Nuys.  Okay, Van Nuys is not a spot where any humans should be seen more than once a decade, but I figure that the office proximity will make up for the possibility that somebody's enchilada will squirt out onto my shirt.

On my first appointed day, I zipped over to Van Nuys at lunchtime.  I marveled at the third world gathered on line, all of them forlorn with some sort of form crumpled up in their hands.  No appointment?  Suckers!  I scurried past them triumphantly as if I had one of those Disneyland Fast Passes.

Inside, my bingo-like number was called pretty quickly.  Geez, I can get out of this dump within fifteen minutes, I thought.  The old Black fart behind the counter checked that my renewal form had been filled out and in correct English.  No problem.  I stood on the line and had my new license photo taken.  Okay, it was a terrible picture, but it's not a headshot going over to Paramount Central Casting.  No problem.  I shuttled a few feet over to the optical machine for the eye test.  Left eye.  Top line.  E-P-Q-R-T.  No problem.  Bottom line.  F-S-L-M-O.  No problem.  Right eye...

Er, problem.  I have very little vision there.  Nothing new.  This has been the case since my time in the womb.  Attention to all potential muggers: if you want to hit me up for my wallet, approach me from behind on my right side.  But, other than that potentiality of being a future crime statistic, this vision has never been an issue.

Except with this asshole at the DMV. 

"You have failed the eye test."

Yeah, so.  My vision hasn't changed.  I just went to my eye doctor in October for a check-up.

The dumbbell fumbled with some paper clips and then handed me another form.  If I had this filled out by my optical physician, I could bring it back and then get cleared to drive.  Okay, so my DMV experience was going to be incomplete today, but, at least, I saw the glimmer of an end game.  When I would have my next appointment in two weeks.

My eye doctor easily filled out the necessary paperwork.  He included my latest eye exam results and virtually cleared me to steer anything except perhaps the space shuttle.  This was all I needed to clear this small bureaucratic hurdle.

Or so I thought.

On the day of my second DMV appointment, I scooted past the morons on line one more time.  Once again, my bingo number was called promptly and I reported to the designated window which was now manned by some Hispanic kid who might have just crawled out of a car trunk.  He barely scanned my form and then stamped another page.

"Okay, step over to the machine and take the eye test."

Huh?

I thought this was a bizarre request given the copious optical dossier my doctor had just provided, but I complied.  The same results, of course. 

"You failed the eye test."

Duh.

I asked whether anything that my optometrist had written was of any use.  Apparently not.

"Your vision has changed." 

No, it hasn't.  Except for reading glasses needed for small print and dark restaurants, I had the same baseline vision.  Fine in the left, zero in the right.  And I have been driving for almost four decades. 

"You'll have to take a road test and prove that the vision isn't a handicap."

WHAT??????  How the hell did he think I got to the DMV office that day?  By tricycle????  And can you please call up on the computer screen my almost pristine driving record????

Indeed, the main problem in all this is that, when I first got my driver's license, I was living in New York and there were no original records for me in California.  But, still?  I asked Hose A if he would at least speak to a supervisor.  And he was nice enough to acquiesce to my request.

No dice.  DMV supervisors are even worse than the people they manage.

"My boss says if you take the drive test this one time, it will be on your record and you never have to do it again."

I looked around at the jerks on line around me.  One could barely speak English and had no I.D. with him.  Another had to be about 90 years old and didn't seem to be getting nearly the same treatment on his end of the DMV counter.   They both would probably sail through their DMV experiences virtually unscathed. 

But me???  I'm a potential menace on the road.  I can't wait to get out there and play pinball with your Lexus.  Or maybe run down your immediate family at a farmer's market in Santa Monica.  This was the excesses of our government in all their glory.  Performing inexplicably and erratically. 

Wanting to get the misery over with as soon as possible, I scheduled the drive test for the following afternoon.  And, unlike perhaps every other slob in the DMV that day, I went home in misery.  Let's face it, the last time you ever drive 100% perfectly in your life is usually when you take your very first road test.  I had done this years ago.  Could I possibly do this twice???

I also thought about some of the horror stories I had heard from friends or the children of friends.  Running into the worst of the worst driving examiners.  Failing the test before they even turn the key in the ignition.  Examiners who are downtrodden and love to use their single ounce of authority in order to fuck with "the man."

Yeah, I didn't sleep much that night.

Three PM the next day couldn't come soon enough.  And, trust me, the afternoon was a thoroughly demeaning event.  I was forced to wait in my car for about 45 minutes in a queue so long that I thought I was going through the drive-through for a "Double Double" at In N'Out Burger.  I had to watch examiners kick a prospective driver's friends and family out of the car, as if they were all going on the road test like it was the Mummy ride at Universal Studios.

Why the hell am I here, I kept thinking.  Over and over and over and over.

When my vehicle was next in line, I noticed my appointed examiner making his way to my car.  A short man in a baseball cap.  Except when the short man in the baseball cap came to my window, I realized that he was a she. 

Oh, shit, is my eye sight really that bad?

No, she really did look like a guy.

Before she climbed into my car, I had to prove that I was semi-competent.  Here's my left signal.  Here's my right signal.  Here's how I honk the horn.

It was THAT bad.

Once we got on the road, I did exactly what a friend at work had counseled me to do earlier that day. 

"Pretend you're driving in front of a police car."

And, for about two-thirds of the test, there was.  The examiner was actually very nice.  Make a left, make a right.  Move to your right lane.  Get over to your left lane.  On the way to the DMV, I noticed a school on the same block.  I knew damn well they would take you through that neighborhood to see if you would slow down.  So, I was prepared.  I figured that's the way the Van Nuys DMV trips up would-be drivers.  Me?  I literally crawled past the school.  Ha!

Eventually, we even wound up on the freeway.  I merged fluidly into the traffic and then fluidly hit the exit ramp.  I looked around at all the vehicles on the road.  How many of them were illegal aliens with licenses printed on their computer?

Even though I had practiced several of them that morning, this road test did not require you to perform a parallel park.  After fifteen minutes that seemed like fifteen days, we pulled into the back of the DMV office. 

"Well, you passed."

EXHALE!!!!

My short guy/girl examiner then nitpicked me on a couple of little nuances of my test, but he/she also mentioned that they were all a result of the many bad habits each of us picks up after they have been driving for years.  But, nevertheless, I was good to go.

LOUD EXHALE!!!!!

I thought about some of the other tests my examiner had to probably administer that day.  I was likely the easiest.  But, surprisingly, I had lucked out with one of the more professional DMV workers in the world.  I let her know that and she started to beam. 

"Nobody ever said that to me before."

She was genuinely moved.  After all, nobody likes the DMV.  And I certainly didn't either.  But, I was quite appreciative of somebody who had taken a nervewracking moment in my life and had smoothed out at least some of the creases.

I still couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there.  Yeah, it's still true.  Nobody really likes the DMV.

Dinner last night:  Leftover Kung Pao Chicken from First Szechwan Wok.