I spent several hours at the
DMV today, waiting to get my
license reinstated after having it suspended (for two
speeding tickets) and taking a
class. I certainly expected the place to be crowded, it being a
Monday morning and all. But
dear god, I wasn't prepared for what I found.
Not only was the place crowded, it was packed. People in nearly every seat, and the seats without people contained odd beings that looked somewhat, but not quite, entirely unlike people. Despite the abundance of people, there were two DMV employees working at the counter. Just two. There were at least six more open computers, but all the other employees were apparently in the break room drinking coffee and burning money.
I took a number and sat down. My number was 42. How ironic. A quick glance at the "Currently Serving" display told me it would be some time -- they were currently serving number 80. Apparently the counter wraps at 100. As I waited, I watched people.
Two young punks walked in loudly, laughing and burping and saying things like "fuck" and "bitch" louder than the rest of the words in their vocabulary, which drew stares from all the God-fearing hicks seated across from them. One of them had apparently had his license suspended for drag-racing, and had then failed to pay the ticket and ignored two letters telling him he'd failed to pay the ticket. After ranting for at least 20 minutes about how fucking unfair it was to have the number 75, goddammit, he began ranting about how fucking unfair it was that his license was suspended just because he was racing and ignored two stupid letters.
It went on like this for a while. Nearly an hour. He'd bitch to his friend about the wait, then bitch about the ticket, then about the wait again. Eventually, he went up to the information desk and asked the lady something, and she looked at him disapprovingly and shook her head. This made him very mad. Apparently, the documentation he had with him wasn't enough to get his license reinstated. Ha ha. He and his friend left, uttering obscenities and bitching about the wait.
As I watched them walk out, in walked a young hispanic fellow. He asked the information lady a question in Spanish (my Spanish is rusty, but I believe he said "I need to renew my license") and she told him to take a number and have a seat. The man then proceeded to poke and prod at the slot on the number-producing machine, in total ignorance of the large red button and the multilingual label with arrow saying "Push button for number".
After watching him dig in the slot for four or five minutes without any success, I began to worry. His frustration level was obviously increasing, and he was starting to turn red. The information lady was busy with somebody else and apparently didn't notice his plight. Finally, he gave up trying to get a number out of the machine and turned to ask the information lady for help. While he wasn't looking, I jumped up and pressed the button.
He said something quickly in Spanish to the lady and pointed at the machine, and she looked at him confusedly for a while. Finally, he looked back at the machine and realized it had spit out a number. He turned a very deep shade of red, took the number and sat down, mumbling to himself.
I tried to look inconspicuous.
Anyway, I ended up getting my license reinstated, so I can drive again. Yay. Stupid DMV. Next time they illegally suspend my license, I'm taking them to court instead of putting up with their crap.