Ode to the DMV

Oh, DMV, why must going to you be such a thing to be dreaded?  Why must I arrive at 7:45 am and not leave until 11 am?  Why do I have to stand in three different lines, each staffed by its own overworked and underpaid surly civil servant?  Is it not enough that you take my time and my money?  Must you take my sanity as well?

Have you ever noticed that there are no clocks in the DMV?  I assume that this is so that when you're sitting there hour after hour after hour you have no clear idea of how long it has been, until you emerge, squinting into the light, and realize that you've been in there for four hours.  There is no time in the DMV, or rather, there is only DMV time.  You sit in that hard plastic chair that is very nearly comfortable but not quite and watch a parade of your fellow-citizens trying to do their best to be law-abiding.  Teenagers sweating over their very first written test so they can get their learner's permit, slightly older ones taking the driving test, senior citizens taking the eye test and the driving test to prove they're still safe to drive.  People renewing licenses, changing titles, getting their pictures taken.  And you sit.  And wait.  They call numbers in no discernible order.  You feel rage rising in your chest under those fluorescent lights as you stand in one line after another.  Here is where you check in and get a number.  Here is where, when that number is finally called some 2 hours later, you hand over your paperwork and your money.  Here is where you get your picture taken and get the exam you have to take.  Then you get back into that last line to have your exam graded and stand while the DMV employee tries to remember how to enter information into the computer.  Then, finally, the moment of truth, which is over all too quickly, and you have in your hand your paper temporary license from the state of California.  And you're wondering to yourself this whole time (or I was, anyway), why we can't just have a NATIONAL LICENSING AND REGISTRATION SYSTEM?

I kid you not, this took 3 hours, and I got off lucky.  The girlfriend is still at the DMV because she has to change the registration on the car, which meant that she couldn't even get a number to get in the first line until after she'd gone and had the car inspected.  So she was some 20 people behind me in our particular class of "customers".  She's still there, four and a half hours later.  Something about a smog test, I don't know.  Bureaucracy.  You gotta love it.