“I’m going to be a little late for our celebration,” I texted my daughter.
“Mom, are you OK?”
“More or less,” I responded as I took my place at the end of a very long line.
The DMV is the common denominator of all people who need to drive.
Neither age, ethnicity nor financial standing supersedes the need to get your license renewed. That’s how a procrastinator, like me, wound up spending the afternoon of my birthday, which coincidentally is my license renewal date, in a sea of strangers at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Those of us in the “no appointment” line juggled handfuls of online materials we had filled out and printed in advance to make us not feel like absolute losers for waiting until the last minute. And, by in advance, I mean earlier that morning.
We were a mixed metaphor of a group. An elegantly dressed woman with perfectly coiffed gray hair was standing in line next to a teenage girl in cut-off jeans who seemed to be dancing to whatever was playing on the headphones she was wearing over her purple hair. No matter what we were wearing, we all wound up at the window where a balding man yawned as he took our papers and gave us a number before he waved us on to find a chair.
I walked over to window 15, thinking that should be lucky since I was born on the 15th. But the chair was filled. The closest I could come was window 13. No time for superstitions, I told myself while picturing my mother throwing salt over her shoulder if she spilled something. The chair in front of window 13 was the only one vacant in the whole row. I took a deep breath and sat down.
Just as the screen showed my number was getting close, nature called.
I crossed my legs and started counting the number of people wearing baseball caps.
Finally, I got a text that I should move to window 23 because my number was about to be called. I inched my way down to the window, where a very friendly clerk glanced at my paperwork and wished me a happy birthday. “Hey, it’s my birthday, too,” the man standing at the next window called out. Several people started singing “Happy Birthday.” Such a friendly crowd, I thought, trying to concentrate on my vision test.
“I think that’s an ‘L’; is that an L? Or maybe an I,” I cried out. The nice clerk moved me to a chair where I could look into a little machine and retake the test.
Finally, she said the words that brought me to tears, “Here’s your temporary license.” I just had to get in line to have my picture taken, under the big Camera sign.
To the birthday buddies who sang to me, see you in a few years.
Email [email protected]. Follow her on Patriciabunin.com
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