Suffering the DMV
Back in 1998, when I first arrived back in Minnesota from a long stint of adventures in Guatemala and Mexico, I initially crashed at my parents house for a few months before I found an apartment and a job. During that time, I got a Minnesota drivers license. Over the following years I moved around the Twin Cities four times, held different jobs and got married. But I was lazy with my license and never bothered to get new ones that reflected my current address. When we landed in Portland two weeks ago, my drivers license still showed that, contrary to all my migrations and life changing events, I was a 32-year-old male still living with my parents.

My apologies to my parents. It’s time I break the last bureaucratic string that binds me to the safety of your home (mom, stop crying, it’s not that big a deal).

So, yesterday the misses and I found ourselves at the DMV, flush with files of documents and proofs, anxious to get ourselves street legal and to hold in our hands a small piece of plastic that solidified our geographic evolution. One of the cool things about Oregon is that you get your drivers license on the same day you apply for it. In Minnesota, you have to wait months before receiving your license in the mail. You’re actually surprised when it finally does show up because you’ve had a good long time to forget the horrible memory of the day you visited the DMV.

The only problem here in Oregon is that you actually have to retake the written test if your old license is from out-of-state. “Fuck that”, I thought, “No problem”. Wrong! We both took the practice test online and scored something like 15%. We were shocked as we realized that for the first time in at least a decade we were going to have to STUDY FOR A TEST! Having to study for any test after you’re 25-years-old is just humiliating and wrong. But we sucked it up and spent a good hour yesterday morning reading the Oregon Drivers Manual and quizzing eachother on DUI fines and left-hand turn scenarios. Large bets were placed on who would get the higher score. I believe mine involved marital permissions to do naughty things with Demi Moore.

Confident in our ability to discern the difference between a ‘School Zone’ sign and a ‘School Crossing’ sign we headed out to the DMV. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about bad DMV experiences but until yesterday I have never really been privileged with a truly bad story of my own. Yesterday, it was total chaos and Kafka hell. It was so packed with humans, we could barely get in the door. No less than 10 screaming kids were going off at any one time. It’s true, the DMV is the great socioeconomic equalizer. The misses said that Hollywood celebrities get to make special appointments at the DMV. I thought we might be able to work that angle. Just days ago she bought a new pair of sunglasses, the ones with giant frames that make her look like the cool Olsen twin (her words, not mine). I thought perhaps we could front some kind of celebrity status. I reminded her of the time we were at a Chipotle and the kid behind the counter told her she looked like Nicole Kidman. “Come on, we can do this, honey!!”. No dice.

We sat for an hour next to this Russian kid and his mom. The kid was trying to fill out some forms that were clearly alien to him. But he was in good spirits about the whole thing. Unfortunately his mom was the wicked witch of Chernogolovka and berated him with harsh ugly Russian words every time he tried to make the DMV experience more human with a little comedy. So he just gave up and sulked, practicing his English signature over and over again on small white napkins he pulled from his pocket.

Finally our number was called. We got our paperwork in order with the DMV guy and then held our collective breath as we were led into the testing room. If you’ve never taken a test with your significant other in a small room where other people are taking the same test, well then you haven’t really got very far in life, have you? Ha. Within the first 10 seconds I heard the misses make a very audible grunting noise from her booth. She got the first question wrong! But I was too concerned with the guy next to me to worry about the wife’s misfortunes. This guy was leaned back all the way in his chair and was just staring at my screen. His cheating gaze and the screaming kids were enough to throw me off my game. I felt like I was in fourth grade. I wanted to raise my hand real high and say, “Excuse me – Mr. DMV guy, yeah, this guy here is cheating and looking over my shoulder. Make him stop.” But no. I acted like an adult and gave him a hard stare and then shifted my body to block my screen. When all was said and done, not only did we both pass the test but we both scored the same 90%! No bragging rights were awarded. But our end-zone dance and high-five display drew scary looks from the huddled masses still dying in their chairs.

Happy with our new drivers licenses and relieved to leave the purgatory hell that is the underfunded Oregon DMV, we marched on to the Library to show our new identities and establish ourselves as friends of literature. Two new sweet pieces of plastic for the wallet in one day. Our lives are most exciting.