The DMV

On a good day it might cause mild annoyance and frustration. On a bad day it will test your faith in humanity. Either way, no one enjoys it and everyone dreads it. The DMV. That hateful, humorless wasteland where lunch hours go to die.

If you’re lucky, you can get away with one trip every four years. But when you move states, you’re pretty much guaranteed a trip or two to make things officially official. You know, new drivers licenses and car registrations and all that.

We’ve been putting it off, waiting patiently for the state of Massachusetts to print and mail us our car title. It took them three weeks, but I decided to give them a pass since they’ve had other things on their mind lately.

In any case, today was the day. We gathered our 6 points of ID each — and all of the 62 other supporting documents we needed — and set out for the Essex County Department of Motor Vehicles. One of the things I like most about living here is that no matter where you are going, the journey is pretty much always pleasant. There’s very little traffic and, unless it’s a white out, the views are always great. So it went today.

The DMV is nestled in the basement of the county courthouse, which stands among a row of very stately and attractive red brick government buildings right along the main street in Elizabethtown. It’s actually quite nice. Admittedly, the bar was not high, since every DMV I’ve ever been to has been located in a strip mall. But we were off to a good start.

Now here’s where the story takes a shocking turn. We walked into the building, through the metal detector (which was being operated by a very pleasant man in uniform), and down the hall to the belly of the beast.

“Wow,” we both said as we walked through the door. “There’s no one here.” No one, meaning there were no other suckers wasting their afternoons, waiting in seemingly endless lines only to be turned away because they had 5 (not 6) points of ID and 61 (not 62) supporting documents. There were, however, plenty of DMV employees waiting patiently behind the counter to help us. They were even smiling.

So we walked up to a window, told the lady what we needed to get done, and she nicely and efficiently handed us the proper paperwork. And since there were actually two things we needed to get done, another lady helped Dave while the other helped me. I tell you, it was crazy.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all puppies and kittens. There were lots of forms to fill out. And the walls weren’t painted a nice, sunny yellow, but typical government gray. But they smiled. And they were helpful. And when we were done they told us to have a nice day. As most things are around here, it was just… pleasant.

And now we’re officially official.

She looks good in blue.