My Own Personal Hell

DMV, Department of Motor Vehicles - the worst form of torture that exists.

I arrived at the San Francisco DMV yesterday at 8:50am. There was a line of people out and around the building, waiting to receive paperwork to begin the process of obtaining identification. Behind me was a guy who was kinda wacked out, missing some teeth; he wanted to "get his life back together", which meant getting a photo i.d. In front of me was an inpatient teenager and her annoying mother who chatted on the phone nonstop. Other line attendees included a short, angry Spanish man who had an affinity for the word "fuck", a woman who thought she was a stand-up comedian, and a young thug with ice in his ears who was trying to pass his permit test for the third time.

The majority of the people who arrived after me were just as baffled as the line, and thought it somehow didn't apply to them. I found myself thinking, why is everyone so surprised? It's the DMV - of course there is going to be a long wait. But I had no idea the hell that was brewing around me...

After an hour of waiting outside, I finally reached the desk and received paperwork to apply for a California Driver's License. Once I filled it out, I was given a number: G123. I looked at the current number in the G sections (there were also numbers beginning with E, H, I and J in the mix) - G034. Fuck. Bookless and ipodless, I wanted to go to my nearby apartment and wait it out for a while and come back with my number in an hour or so. But I stuck it out in fear I would miss my number being called. It was kind of nice to sit down for a while and raise my braced leg up on one of the chairs. But then my back and my ass started to hurt because I sat there for about two and a half hours.

When G123 was finally called, I gathered my belongings and locked my leg brace and marched up to the teller at counter #7. This is it, I thought! Done, finally! Wrong. After spending about five minutes with the teller filling out necessary paperwork, she pointed me in line to wait to get my photo taken. Another 15 minutes, not so bad. 1, 2, 3, smile, flash! Then I was pointed to wait in line to receive my written test. With only two people working the front desk and another at lunch. A mean woman was checking people's tests and giving them their temporary license, and an awkward man was providing paperwork and numbers to people arriving. There wasn't anyone to pass out tests to the people waiting, so our line was at a stand-still for the first 20 minutes I was standing in it. There was a lag in people checking in, so our line started to move about, then came to a halt again when the awkward man had to attend to the other line. In all, I waited 45 minutes in a line of 12 people to receive the written exam.

I got the exam, hobbled to a test taking counter and knocked it out in under four minutes. By then, the line inside the test-taking area to hand in your exam was about 25 people crammed into a 20x10 space with other people taking their tests. It was pretty cozy. I had been standing for over an hour at this point, and my leg was starting to stiff up. I told the person I was behind to save my place in line so I could rest at the handicap seat for a little bit. Just when I was starting to get the feeling back in my knee, I'm tapped on the shoulder by a woman with a Polish accent who looked about 7 1/2 months pregnant. "Ma'am, can you please stand up so I can sit down and finish taking my test?" (Earlier I had seen this woman cheat the system by demanding a lower number so that she could be seen quickly.) I was speechless. Did she see my leg brace? Did she understand I was more "handicap" than her? It's not my fault she got herself knocked up. You didn't see me cheating the system because I had a bum leg, I waited it out with all of the other able-bodied people. But of course, I got up and gave her a mean glare as if to say "I hope your baby looks like a monkey." No more than ten minutes later, the preggo woman gets up and marches to the counter, skipping everyone in line, and hands in her test. If I was running the DMV, I wouldn't have tolerated that bullshit. Even if the woman looked like this:

My total wait time: 5+ hours. Did I get my license? Yeah, and I got a 34/36 on the exam. I'm now the proud owner of a California state temporary driver's license. We'll see if they actually send the real one.