15 July 2005

Someone told me long ago
There’s a calm before the storm
I know it’s been coming for some time

After paying $675 to the state of florida for past due parking, toll, and speeding tickets, I was cleared to get my drivers license reinstated. The actual drivers license issuing authority is next door to the county clerk of the court near tyrone mall in west st. Pete. I walk next door to the dmv and they issue me a ticked that reads d551. I then hear a mechanical voice announce “now serving d503 at booth number 4” …. Sigh… Welcome to the DMV.

The guy sitting at the front desk asks me how I’ll be paying… Credit card, I answer. “We take mastercard & discover.” Wait… No visa? “No visa!” Fucking hell. So I walk a block to BA and get $200… Just in case.

I get back to the waiting room and they’re serving d509… Fuck. Let’s get food. 2 tacos and a quesidilla later they’re still only serving d521. So I sit down and take my medicine like a man. I got myself into this. It’s nobody’s fault but mine. I ‘m playing solitaire on my blackberry and listening to this 50-something lady bitch into a cell phone how she’s going to sue the state DOT in Tallahassee because she wasn’t in the car when ANY of it happened. I silently promise myself I’ll never be that guy.

After what can only be the equivilant time that it took early men to discover fire once he cralled out of the primorial ooze, the Orwellian voice informes me that d551 is now being served at counter 3. I walk up to counter 3 and we begin the ass-rape that typifies any dealing with the government.

” There’s a $200 license reinstatement fee when the applicant is uninsured.”

Of course there is. “Yes sir.”

I am the submissive slave in this S & M dioramma.

“Yes, sir. I like paying $200. Please give me more pain, sir.”

This fee; that charge…. A roadsign test…. An eye test. And then we can issue.

“Yes, sir. I love tests, please give me more.”

“If you’re Paying by credit card, BTW, there’s a 2% charge for all credit card transactions. And we don’t take visa. “

Of course there is. “Thenk you sir, I would never dream of trying to use visa. Those people suck. Fuck visa.”

Road sign test, I only miss one…. PS, why isn’t a “school zone” sign a picture of a tried teacher doing violence to children? Oh, well.

“Sir, can u put you head to this rest and push until the light comes on? Read me the 5th line.

“A… Z… P…. Q… Fuck, I can’t fucking see.”

I was unable to get a driver’s license because I failed my eye exam. How big of a double dog looser am i?… wait! don’t answer that. And so the shame spiral begins anew. Apple martinis, anyone?

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