DMV in NYC

For the past year and a half that I'd been living in NYC, I'd transitioned from being soley an LA driver to being soley a NY subway hopper (with the occasional cab ride here and there). Now that the Boy and I have explored much of the city's neighborhoods on foot, we've been itching to expand our exploration outside of the city with weekend road trips. But without a car, our options are limited. I hate bus tours, as I usually spend most of my time asleep, and trains will only conveniently drop you off to certain places. Also, with trains, your time is governed by a schedule.

So, we decided to activate our car insurance and register the Boy's car which has been sitting unused in a garage in Connecticut. This idea had been in the works for a while, but the Boy's schedule made it so that he could never get to the DMV to get anything done. They aren't open on the weekends, and their hours are 8:30 - 4PM on the weekdays. The only way this was going to get done was if I went down and registered the car myself.

I'll admit that I wasn't initially too excited to do this since I hate DMVs and I'd have to swap my CADL for a New York license, thus throwing me into the New York jury duty pool.

But the Boy was nice enough to fill out all of the paperwork for me so that all I had to do was sign a few spots and go down to the DMV with all of the necessary documents. Carrying all of these documents made me very nervous. I had on me my CADL, passport, social security card, checkbook, title to the Boy's car, and (since my coworkers entrusted me with the safety of our MegaMillions lottery pool) 60 lottery tickets a worthless pile of paper.

I got to the DMV near my work right when it opened at 8:30AM, and already there were 20 people in line ahead of me. I got behind the last person in line and waited to tell the lady what my purpose for the day's visit was. She then handed me a slip of paper and told me to wait in the photo and eye exam line.

Now part of the reason why I think the DMV is so inefficient is that there are too many lines to get into and no one directing people or giving them instructions on what to do. People got into the wrong lines, didn't follow procedures once at the front of the line and were generally disorganized. I'm sure the DMV workers thought we were all a bunch of idiots, but they had to give us licenses anyway.

By watching everyone else make mistakes and get yelled at, I had all of my papers in place and knew that when I got to the front of the picture line, I was to step to the left and read off the eye chart. Only then was I allowed to approach the desk and hand over my paperwork. Then I would step over to the left again and have my picture taken before taking my paperwork back and taking a ticket to wait in the paperwork processing line. All seemed to be running pretty smoothly for me. Only, I forgot to take my big, ugly, puffy jacket off while taking the picture. Damnit! That thing made me look like a marshmallow, and this would be my permanent driver's license picture. Oh well, too late to do anything about it now.

I waited about 10 minutes before my number was called, and I could have my paperwork processed by a virtual human robot. She barely looked at me and spoke with such an exasperated, monotone voice and scripted words that I had a hard time processing what she was asking me. I handed her all of my paperwork and told her that I was here to swap my license and register a car. She sifted through my paperwork for a minute and turned to a computer. And then the dreaded words came out:

DMV lady: You're picture didn't go through. You're going to have to go to the picture line and retake it.

I looked over at the picture line which wasn't too long, but the paper processing line had blown up to double the length it was when I first went through it. My friendly face began to unravel at the thought of having to go through two lines all over again.

Me: What?! I have to do the whole thing all over again?!

DMV lady: No, I'll stay here with your paperwork. You just get me another picture. Come right back over here when you get your picture.

Whew! That's not so bad. And I get to retake my picture. Things are going well.

There were only four people ahead of me in the picture line. I stood in line and waited for a couple of minutes before I heard the DMV lady shouting my name out.

DMV lady: Ms. LANYTransplant! Ms. LANYTransplant. Please don't wait in line again! Go up to the front and get your picture taken.

Cut the line?! I can't cut the line! I'm a horrible line cutter! I'm not aggressive enough for that! Why didn't she come over and bring me up? I can't just go up to the picture taking guy! He has rules and doesn't like them broken!

Me (to the girl in front): Excuse me, I'm at the window over there and need to have my picture taken right now. I'll just step in front.

She was seething. The picture man saw me and made a point to ignore me for trying to cut. The girl behind me stepped right in front of me to reclaim her spot. By now, the people in the paper processing line were yelling at me to go up to the picture taking guy and get my picture taken now! I was holding up a window so that the paper processing line was just growing longer and longer. But the picture taking guy would not pay attention to me, and the people in front of me were satisfied that I was not going to cut in front of them.

There were only a couple of people in front of me. I could wait. I ignored the shouts of the DMV lady and people in the other line since the picture taking line people wouldn't let me through. I waited in line, comforted by the thought that these idiots in front of me were only making their wait longer by not letting me through.

When it was my turn to retake my picture, the picture guy had forgotten me. I broke his eye chart rule, marched up to him and told him that my picture didn't go through. The lady at the window had been trying to get me to quickly take another. He'd realized his mistake now and politely took another. I was so irritated that I could barely smile.

I then went back to the robot. She processed my paperwork and then rattled off some instructions about a car inspection and my interim license which I could barely listen to with such a monotone voice.

A week or two later, I got my license in the mail. I looked pissed.