A Long Awaited Renewal

My penchant to pursue a procrastinate personality purely punished me today. I knew my vehicle registration was up for renewal over a month ago, but I waited til the last week of the month to get ur’ done. So with all the appropriate documents in hand, my son and I headed for the license office that seemed to be the backdrop for many a Stephen King novel.

Upon arrival, we were # 22 in line. Shouldn’t be too long of a wait since four windows are working. No wait. One window is occupied by the employee whose job it is to tear perforations from the sides of sheets coming off the printer. She had the duty of operational member of staff relating to those desiring to register or renew commercial vehicles. Long title for a do nothing job. No one approached the window save for a fellow worker who came over to converse .
Well then three windows should make the process run smooth except that the lady staffing the one window was constantly running to the backroom to replenish her supply of peanut butter crackers and potato chips and washing them down with some juice type concoction. I’ve searched the web and can’t seem to find the author of that diet.

I felt the pain and sympathized with a friend of mine who recently endured the suffering of a late night adventure with his wife and daughter at the book store in a quest for a first edition Harry Potter novel. But I’m a veteran and experienced in the theory associated with long lines and the “hurry up and wait” phenomena. This should be a piece of cake and all the while a sense of claustrophobic panic began to sweep over me.

I whiled away the time looking at the people. The elderly, who could hardy walk, yet alone drive, made their way up to the window. One man had to be yelled at “NEXT” four times before he realized where he was. Cellular ring tones of every imaginable Broadway show, rock concert, rain forest or bird chirping filled the room. It was getting nasty. Grumblings were heard and once or twice lynching was mentioned.

I finally worked my way to the front A dull apathetic drone. Tax form? Check. Inspections? Check. Insurance? Check. Form 1275? What the hell is that? Just kidding. Lady, your humor just fills my very heart with fucking love for the whole bureaucratic function. Maybe I could give Karl Rove your name so he could pass it on to Time Magazine.

This scenario was at an agency license office and not one operated by the State Director of Revenue. These offices are doled out to friends of the Governor. Maybe this should become an election issue. After all, non governmental, private sector employees should not be permitted to enjoy the same privileges as the lethargic employed by the government. It’s like posting the wrong number on a suicide prevention hotline poster.

Maybe I expect too much. After all it took God a week to unfold His creation. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Peking Duck requires a 24 hour advance notice. But the time it took to have an emission and mechanical inspection, a muffler replacement to pass the inspection, and a search through the file cabinet of important papers to locate the tax receipt, only took a total of 15 minutes longer that the snaking through the line to renew the plates. Hey, the I.R.S ain’t such a bad bunch of guys.