Princess G

The three most dreaded letters in the alphabet, the great equalizer, the DMV no one escapes the DMV, we ALL have to go – except celebrities, I’ve never heard of anyone spotting a celebrity in line to renew their license (don’t they have to drive – ever?). We all have our horror stories. There’s a comedian, Dane Cook is his name I think, who has the greatest bit of standup about how they should have a guy standing outside the door of the DMV to punch you in the face on your way in so the rest of the experience won’t seem so painful; and how in the future when we can beam around like on Star Trek and everything takes like 2 seconds, the DMV will still take like 9 seconds. That guy cracks me up. Anyway, last week I had to have my car inspected and my registration renewed and transferred to Colorado. I had successfully put it off since I moved here like nine months ago, but my NJ inspection was expiring at the end of April making me officially illegal in two states so I decided to bite the bullet. I went to the inspection station to have my Enhanced Emissions Test. There was only one lane open so I was in line for about 55 minutes before they got to my car. I didn’t really think anything about the wait time, but when I got to the front of the line the guy working said hello and said “I’m really sorry about that wait time.” I was a little confused by this so I just said “no problem,” while I tried to determine if he was being sarcastic. Inside the little waiting area I had a nice conversation with a lady who was just after me, who informed me that it never takes that long, but nobody was being beligerant or threatening because they were being so inconvenienced. Then when I was writing my check twenty minutes later another employee very sincerely apologized that the wait was so long that day because one of their computers was down and with it being the end of the month they were really busy. She even took some time to answer my questions about my test results. My emissions were fine –always a relief when you’re driving a 10 year old Honda with 198,000 miles on it- but she said they could have failed me for my gas cap because it is not quite sufficiently pressurized, but all I would have to do is buy a new one so she didn’t want me to have to go to the trouble of getting re-tested. I thanked her, a lot, and started to wonder if this was a dream sequence. Next I had to go to the county clerk’s office for the registration renewal, change my title to Colorado, and get new plates. In New Jersey, this requires taking a whole day off work, and a Zanex. I walk in and was fumbling for a ticket from the “please take a number” wheel of fortune thing, when two different people simultaneously said, “I can help you over here.” Whoa! Okay, great, I went and sat down. I gave them my paperwork. In the process of processing me, the nice lady DMV employee found a problem. My insurance verification had the wrong VIN for my car. While I’m already anticipating the ensuing ordeal to get this corrected and come back another day, she offers, “If you have their number I can give them a call and see if we can straighten this out.” I gave her the number and she stepped away, and that was it for me… “Where the hell am I? Why are you people so nice and helpful? Do they dispense ecstasy with your morning coffee at the DMV in Colorado?” Mind you, I am not complaining. When she returned and told me that they verified my information so she could go ahead with my registration, I laughed in a maniacal sort of way and explained my amazement to her. She then revealed that she used to live in New York and proceeded to share her DMV horror story with me. We agreed if this had happened in Jersey I would have been standing in line for three hours (not an exaggeration) they would have noticed the wrong VIN number, handed me back my papers, looked right thru me and said, “next!”; leaving me confused, angry, dejected, and angry and having to tell my boss I’ll be needing another day off work. I say all this to let you know, especially those of you living in the north-eastern portion of the US, that there is compassionate life on earth. You don’t have to be in a constant state of tension, you don’t have to accept unprovoked hostility. I am so glad I moved here, grass fires, gun-toting teens, John Elway, and all! You wouldn’t believe how much nicer life can be just because people say “excuse me” and “thank you” on a regular basis, rather than worrying that someone is going to assault you over a parking space. Wait I shouldn’t be telling people this, everybody will want to move here and I’d be back where I started. Please disregard the preceding story. I better just go back to bitching about everything.

Posted: Thursday, May 2nd, 2002 @ 3:54 pm
Categories: Random Crap.
Tags: Colorado, Dane Cook, DMV.
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