Life Lessons Learned at the DMV

My Florida driver's license expired this past Sunday on my 28th birthday...

Unfortunately, this happens to be the sort of "expiration" that they won't let you simply pay money for and renew online. Nope. You have to go down to the DMV, in person, so that they can verify that you still know what a stop sign looks like.

Now that I live in California, I had to hunt down and trek over to the local DMV in San Francisco. You know, the one over on Fell Street and Broderick... yeah, the ONLY one in the entire city. (Seriously. People?) Of course, I have to admit that I got the renewal notification in the mail months ago when I was still living in FL and I waited until the very, very last minute to take care of it. And this past Thursday was the last day the DMV was open before my license's expiration...

So, I show up first thing on Thursday at 10 a.m.

(I realize that 10 a.m. is not technically "first thing" and I probably should have gotten there earlier being that I was missing work to take care of this, but, um, you know, I had to meet a client that morning and then I got some yogurt for breakfast from my new favorite place called Fraiche which just happened to be on the way (couldn't resist!) and then, well, I eventually got there.)

I understand now that I was unconsciously procrastinating and trying to put off the inevitable pain.

It ended up being one of the strangest experiences I have had in this city yet... but there are 5 important life lessons that day I have learned that I will share here with you.

Life Lessons Learned at the DMV

1. Barney the dinosaur lied. You are not special. Nobody is. No matter what your age, class, ethnicity, height, weight, handicap, religion, intelligence level, style of dress, attitude, sense of urgency, etc., YOU will have to go through the same process as everyone else. The homeless man, the hipster with his ipad, the vegan couple with dredlocks and the mother of the two year old she couldn't leave at home are all together, crammed into a bank of plastic chairs, waiting for their numbers to be called. We are all equal in the eyes of the DMV in that we are all cattle. We are simply a number. (In my case, G168). Do not take this as an insult. No. This is just a way of life. Every day, the DMV has to get hundreds of city dwellers through this process. The only way to be impressive is to smile and act happy to have just waited 138 minutes for your number to be called. Even then, they won't do you any real favors... maybe they just won't scowl at you quite as much. And they might even tell you to have a happy birthday.

2. Mr. Gates is a failure. Gates' stated that his dream was to get a P.C. "on every desk and in every home." For a city with such advanced technology (ref. "hipster with ipad" in bullet point 1), this technology has not yet penetrated the fortified, inner realm of the DMV. There is literally a crawling hub of dot commers and silicon valley-ians right here in the city. Dude, there are public toilets that clean themselves!! There are electronic signs at the bus stops that tell you how far away the next two buses in the queue are. Yet. Yet. When you renew your license at the DMV, you take traffic law test on paper with a number two pencil and stand in line for an hour so that the lady can hold up her score card next to your 30 question, two sided test and grade it BY HAND. Yes, folks. They grade all of the tests by hand. Yes. By hand.

3. The red headed lady at the counter is not your mother. The lady at the front counter of the DMV does not like you. She doesn't like anybody. She yells all day long and never gets tired. She will yell at you even if you fill out your form correctly, avoid eye contact and stand patiently in line. She will yell at you because she likes it. She will yell at you because she can. There is obviously something wrong with you and she is not trying to act like your mother.

4. The true definition of a "good" book... If I could have gone back and done this whole day over, the one thing I would have done differently was bring a book. No. Sorry. I did bring a book. I would have brought a GOOD book. One that could keep my attention for more than 5 minutes at a time. Trust me on this one. Though you may be tempted to bring a book that will look impressive to others or a book that you "need to read" for work, don't do this. Bring one that you will enjoy. No, no. Don't bring "Anna Karenina" or "How to Heal When Ministry Hurts". Instead, indulge yourself and bring that old, tattered copy of Twilight, The Devil Wears Prada or Vogue. (Ok, that last one is not really a book but it counts!) The true test of a good book is whether you will still want to keep reading it at minute 137 of your wait.

5. Birthdays can expire. So this is the sad part of my story. At the end of the whole three and a half hour ordeal, they say you owe them $34 and that it will take 4-6 weeks to mail your new driver's license to you. Yesterday I went to Trader Joe's and purchased a bottle of "Two Buck Chuck" Savignon Blanc. The cashier asked to see my I.D. so I handed her the only one I had, my FL driver's license. She looked at it and said, "That's expired. I can't take it." Ummmm... well, driver's licenses expire but birthdays can't expire, right? Wrong. "I can't accept that as a valid form of I.D." Well. Lesson learned. Apparently birthdays do expire.

And perhaps this is the secret to why wisdom comes with age. The older you get, the more life lessons, like these, you have to learn at the DMV.