Well, there
are at least two DOTs. To obtain a driver’s license, you need documents. The
DOT website’s requirement for documentation I had well in hand. Now the other
DOT on-site had other requirements. They handed me a pamphlet detailing what I
was required to produce. I hadn’t thought of a birth certificate, as what else,
proof of birth, (and if I didn‘t have one, would have, absurdly, a death
certificate have done the trick?) was necessary to buy a car, take out a
mortgage, enter college, or commit to a loan with a visit to the county seat as
preamble. Really now, did you say the original?
No, I do not
routinely carry on me a birth certificate. My ever-prepared wife knew of its
location. Therefore, we had to return. We did so in an hour. Before that, we
had spent an hour and a half waiting. Take a number, sit. If you sat in the
waiting closet, you were with fifteen others. I couldn’t take it. My heart
condition does not permit such closest-possible placing on a good day. This
day, rain was on its way. The dense humidity made for breathing difficulties
for me more than if I had been alone in the waiting slit. I stood in the
doorway, one foot propping open the door a big crack and I inhaled cooler
stirred air. The other waiters thanked me for my dutiful foot placement. Others
sat a few feet left or right of the door to the office proper. These seats
seemed to be for complications in the process. Anyone there took a long time at
the counter in front of one of two women.
The one woman, in central position , never smiled, she assessed the need
and did what was required.
The other
two DOT personnel also did as required. They did not indulge in despair, anger,
or frustration. Another day, don’t tell me who, tell me what, over and over in
a submarine compartment. One donned a
baseball cap, exited the building and re-entered around half an hour later, forgetting
the cap was on , sitting behind a sign for next counter please. After a time (
around 45 minutes) all three were doing licenses. The third of the DOT sat
around at the end of a curve in the counter, somewhat at the back. Very close
behind him you took your test (on a computer screen) if need be. The now
capless one got the variety of the day as a, I swear, a 12-year-old came with
Mom to get a permit. She got smiles from the processor.
The one in
the back was doing a fast rate. Answer questions, present docs, look in viewer.
Stand before a backdrop, smile if you got it. You pay, sign, goodbye.
(Elsewhere if the photo doesn’t suit you, you get another try, and it is done
in compensatory spacious accommodations while waiters actively converse. Here
it was a solitary turn, oppressed by lack of space and don’t cross the waiters,
in all such matters once done there was no way back.) He was going and going.
Sometime when I was letting someone out or in and then re-establishing my
position at the door, he left his chair. Maybe ten minutes, must be a toilet
back there somewhere. The middle person also went back, a long time, same
toilet?
All three
from the DOT contributed to melancholic output in pinched quarters. No one
waiting voiced a protest, some did mutter “Letter to the Editor”. Most were
relieved to get the hell out of there. Theirs had been a melancholic wait. Like
confined to Trieste during the last century. Of course, the DOT Three couldn’t
leave. It may have been hopeless resignation or the end-is-near-anyway
mentality that prevailed among them. I rather think they were participatory in
the general milieu of kindness, aiding anticipation, politeness, and common
courtesy of the region. I guess to be “common” as in what was once ordinary
respect and laissez admittance to the group which was in play.
Nevertheless,
neither they nor me nor the waiters should be in such a zone the DOH must have
had requests to close down. Do so and no licenses? Mental and social and
physical and medical issues are endemic to the waiting area. People escape into
their phones. I got the door. The employees had no escape. And back at it the
next workday. Back to 150 more. They gotta drive. They gotta have licenses. The
SOBs and DOBs of the DOH do not gotta do anything. And of course they don’t.
This you
know as you exit town. Could stop at Billy’s on your way out. Ice cream, yes,
but check the little signs in the little windows. I had a chili dog. Back in the car and it is rare hereabouts - a Nissan Versa. Driven out
of town under open skies, green fields, and a simply arranged earth all about.
Drive on, don’t try to think along the lines of melancholy. Don’t approach
mourning as you approach exceeding the speed limit. The DOH must have many more
at the edge of sadness, anyway.
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