I Can't Believe It Would be Illegal For Me to Set You On Fire
(Part 2 or There had Better Damn Well be a Roller Coaster at the End of This
Line)
by Juniper200
I checked the PennDOT Web site to see what time the DMV opened. 8:30. Well, I took that with a healthy pinch of Kosher salt because, as we have seen, these people are filthy liars. I resolved to arrive early and be, if not the first, one of the first people in line.
I'm a newspaper copy editor. I work second-shift hours from 4 p.m. to midnight, and I don't like to acknowledge that there is an 8 a.m., let alone that I might one day see the wrong side of it. My Master Plan was the same as the one favored by college students and idiots everywhere: Stay up all night, because it's easier to stay awake than wake yourself up. Funny, you'd think I would have seen the flaws in this plan (#1: it is stupid; #2: it doesn't work.) the first 600 times I tried it, but hey, "Live and don't learn" is fast becoming my personal motto.
So it was a bleary, crabby Juniper who left the house Saturday morning; a Junie who felt like her eyes had been pickled and her skin had been lightly misted with garlic Pam. As I pulled up to the thrice-accursed DVM, my jaw dropped. Because I knew The Line had to be some kind of sleep deprivation-induced hallucination.
It snaked out the door, down the two turns of the wheelchair ramp and halfway across the parking lot. Said parking lot was full, and people were starting to park on neighboring lawns. I have, in all seriousness, seen shorter lines for uber-coaster Raptor at Cedar Point. People in this line brought coolers. This line made me believe that Hell recently privatized and ousourced its Purgatory division to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
So, I queued up. And waited. I hadn't brought a book because, hey, I was going to be at the front of the line! (Also because books are for smart people and I am stupid, stupid, stupid.) I waited some more. It got to be 8:30, the alleged magic opening time. More waiting. Seasons changed. Italian governments fell, came to power and then fell again. Still, the line did not move.
At 9:00, the line not having moved an inch, I had an epiphany. I was waiting in a line so long that old babushkas who saw it threw up their hands and said, "Yeah, in Russia, line waits on you, but I've got a life to lead here people." If you'll recall my previous adventure, I was waiting to send a fax to a bank that would mail something to the DMV office. It was Saturday. There was no one at the bank to receive the Holy Fax from the Holy PennDOT fax machine. I was (and probably still am) a Flaming Idiot.
So I drove home and slept for 26 hours. 26 hours. I shit you not. The horror of the line without end and a third trip to the DMV shocked my fragile brain into hibernation.
It's quarter of one now. If I leave in half an hour, I should be through the line by lunchtime. Stay tuned for tomorrow's thrilling episode.
My visit this morning was very short. Didn't even get out of the car. Because nothing makes my day more than driving to the DMV at 7 a.m. only to find that they're closed on Mondays!!!
I will have these people's stony hearts for paperweights. I will play badmitton with the souls of their firstborns.
My Worldview? Shattered.
I went to the DMV yesterday morning and got there around 7:45 for the 8:30 opening. I was number 20 in line. It was hot and early and no one was happy. As time passed, the line once again grew to Six Flagsian proportions. I was working up a good head of ranty steam.
But then...the office opened. There was a different triage guy working (Dickhead, I later saw, was administering road tests that day. Those poor, poor kids...) and he happily faxed the Holy Title Transfer Request and gave me my number. I showed the lady at the window my birth certificate, my old drivers license, my social security card, two utility bills and a pay stub (Note to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: Why not just add a secret handshake requirement to all this? It'll be easier in the long run.) and she gave me my new drivers license. Once the office opened, I was in and out in half an hour.
I'm just...huh. This is actually kind of embarassing. The only thing I'm even a little bit mad about this time is that they didn't let me keep my Michigan drivers license, which is more attractive than the Pennsylvania one and had a very cute picture of me, to boot. And I can't even get very worked up about that.
So, yeah. PennDOT and the Saylorsburg DMV are a bunch of garbage-licking, smegma-snorting, Glitter-appreciating, llama-fucking whoremasters for not being rude and slow enough for me to write a good rant. Bastards!
<grumble mumble>Bunch of tapdancing cumdumpsters. How I loathe them. </grumble mumble>
Posted 6/29/03, 6/30/03 and 7/02/03