This is direct from an email I'd sent friends last month.
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Another hair raising ride with Niki, this time the MVA to renew my license
for 5 yrs. I made the mistake of seeing something interesting and saying,
"hey, look at that, it's......" and instantly realized my mistake as she
didn't look but began to gaze, just as the car in front started to
slowdown. It was probably my gurgled scream "LOOK OUT!" that saved the day. Of
course she claims she'd seen it in the side of her eye and I simply beat her
to it. So, on the way home I see a whole back seat someone had left laying
by the side of the road and commented, "would you look at....." whereupon I
stopped and said, "No! don't look, there's nothing there". So then I did
the "Schultz" routine in my best imitation German accent from Hogan's Heroes
for awhile. "I dun see noooo ting!" She actually was a bit better than
the last time I rode with her, or my fear factor level has increased.
2 HOURS I WAITED THERE!!!!! Last time I was paying about $75 for 2 yr tags
and now I'm paying $180 for the same 2 yr tags and the service is half as
good as before. WHAT IN THE HELL ARE THEY DOING WITH ALL THE MONEY THEY
COLLECT??!!! One thing is sure, it's not going to hire people to work
there, nor build any other places like it. What a ripoff of Americans.
To make it worse, as I sit I began to wonder if I am in the right place.
It's always been the MVA, and the building said MVA still on the outside,
but it sure looked like a roundup by INS going on in there. This is one of
those times where you start looking around and begin to wonder who, besides
you and the counter people, actually have English as their first language.
I turned to Niki and said, "I feel like a minority here". Still, it's
cheaper and probably about as quick to do it there on site than through the
mail once you are past 40 in this state. It doesn't matter how good your
eyes were the last time, if you are over 40 and renew by mail you must get a
form from the optrician filled out and sent along with it. That would mean
paying $30 for the license and about same or a bit more for the eye exam at
Walmart optometry center. Renewing the tag, which also would expire this
month was a whole lot easier, done online.
As for the wait at MVA, they were moving fairly fast, at a 2 minute per
person rate. I went in at B132 and they also have A and C numbers, and I got
out at B189. So, if you ignore the A & C numbers you have the above figure
for processing drivers, if you add those in it would probably be about 40
seconds per person. I thought I'd picked a good day to go there, beautiful
weather, after the morning crowd and lunchtime break crowd, before a holiday
and while the kids are all still in school. I can't imagine what it might
have been like if the place had also been filled with high school kids after
school. Most of the people there were NOT young people getting a learner's
permit, but older. I went in about 1:20 and got out about 3:25pm. Terrible
picture on the license this time, but it may be the subject matter, lol.
On the way home, we go past the guardrail Niki tried to take out last year
with the truck, entering I-695, then we were heading down the entry to our
exit ramp from 695 onto I-97 south and I see the beltway backing up past the
last chance for any of them to enter our exit ramp as we are approaching the
junction of the interstates and Niki is just blissfully NOT EVEN considering
the situation. At least the music distracting her was better this time. I
told her look out for someone wanting to jump out of the traffic jam on
I-695 forming up to the left front of us, and no sooner had I said it than
someone did that exact thing! There is always someone that can't stand to
just wait through the backup and are sure they will find the perfect other
way to head the same direction, and of course ALWAYS at the LAST POSSIBLE
MOMENT CROSSING THE MEDIAN AREA AND INTO THE OTHER RAMP. I wonder why
these people are struck with that moment of self recognized brilliance
(idiots!) only at just the last possible moment to accomplish it?
Anyway, I'd been planning on having a lunch date too with Niki, but after
the ordeal of waiting with the masses of foreign humanity in a crammed building
space we stopped off so Daddy could buy Niki a fast food chicken nugget meal
instead, since she had one hour left before leaving to work. If I'd
realized it would take 2 hours, we could have gone, eaten, and been back by
the time my number came up. At least now I know what the average is, take a
number, find the difference, multiply by 2, then go spend the time
elsewhere. Oh, and also expect to feel like you just had a visit to the
United Nations or Immigration and Naturalization Services. I've never seen
so many ethnics in there before, it's like they've just opened the flood
gates, because I can't believe they all decided together that April was the
month to be there.
I did get to chit chat with a few there, one a young man who does
construction work and was flaming about all the illegals. It was really
getting to him they were taking so many construction jobs and then he's at
the dr license place and they were all over there too. He sounded like me,
going off about how our taxes should be paying for services for us and not
for everyone that can crawl across the border. Thankfully this was on an
outside bench early in my waiting process (enjoying the good weather and
sun), so we didn't start the next Mexican-American war which might have
occurred inside. Hmmm, I think I'll go to El Saltos tonight with the wife
and get some Mexican food. I might as well get something good out of the
situation too.
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