I have the official, non-folded-up-piece-of-paper version of my Texas State Driver’s License in my hand, and it is a wonderful thing.  I’m not referring to the license itself — the photo is surprisingly good and my hair looks shiny, though I’d stop short of calling it wonderful, and I have strong suspicions (comparing it with Pete’s, whose photo was taken by the same lady immediately after mine) that they had to zoom out in order to fit my hair in the frame — but what it represents.  Not only does an updated driver’s license mean that I finally have the appropriate ID required to pick up a local library card (something I’ve been eagerly anticipating for several weeks), but it represents the successful end to one of the most annoying things about moving often: the costs, in time and money, of registering and re-registering your car and your self with every new state.

Texas doesn’t hold a candle to Massachusetts in terms of the overall costs of registering a vehicle and obtaining a license; I think it was somewhere around $500 for the two of us in MA, maybe around $200 here.  The process is roughly similar, though, in that you have to bring your proof of Texas insurance to an inspection station, then the title and proof of inspection and proof of insurance to the registration office, then the proof of registration to the license bureau.  (I don’t think that they call them DMVs, SAAQs, or RMVs here, so forgive me the terminological looseness.)

The most difficult thing about the whole process this time was figuring out where to go.  Before the move, I’d painstakingly compiled a three-page document detailing all of the documents and addresses that we’d need for everything (which included Social Security cards and passports — the Great State does not mess around when confirming your identity as a real ‘merican), but something got messed up in execution and we ended up waiting in line for an hour and a half at the Plano DMV, only to be informed at the end of the line that there was a very specific, special bureau for out-of-state-to-in-state registration conversions.  That wouldn’t have been so awful if we hadn’t spent one of those 1.5 hours waiting at the end of the line outside in 105 degree weather, and if we hadn’t spent all of that time in line surrounded by other people.  Because no matter what state or country you’re in, the DMV is always inevitably filled with indignant people who simply cannot countenance the idea that dealing with a notoriously slow governmental agency might perchance involve waiting.  Where do these people who so loudly protest the injustice of the DMV line normally go, I wonder?  Because it always seems to be their very, very first time encountering anything other than immediate, courteous service.

Happily, the Specific Texas Bureau that Deals Exclusively with Registration Conversions is where they house all of the friendly, funny, genuinely helpful DMV employees who serve you immediately, compliment you on your jewelry, and are really interested in talking with you about your astrological sign.

After that, we eventually ended up hitting a smaller DMV for our license exchange at exactly the right time, because we got in and out in under and hour with no waiting outside, and the word in the rest of the line was that the wait time had been four hours the previous week.  This bureau also provided the doubtful amusement of watching some really, really old men, accompanied by their caregivers, struggling to pass the vision test.  I have to hope that the extremely slow and extremely ancient old man who failed the test due to not being able to understand the many patient explanations given to him about the difference between reading a vertical line of type and reading a horizontal line of type is only renewing his license because he, too, really wants a local library card.

There were also a couple of 16-year-old-boys there — both of them with moms who had little Bluetooth earpieces lodged in their ears the entire time, which is one of those things that has already probably crossed the line into embarrassing, dorky Mom behavior — getting their first licenses, and watching them was also pretty awesome.  Because there is just no way that a 16-year-old boy will ever consent to smile for a photograph, since that would be profoundly uncool.  Instead, they’d squint stoically and frown at the camera, no doubt impressing their friends by looking like they were being photographed for their first mugshot.  (Too-cool-to-smile license photos fall behind too-cool-to-smile wedding photos in the book of things that amuse me, though, because there are few things more amusing than a photo of an ecstatically grinning bride and a stone-faced groom.)

Best of all?  My new driver’s license doesn’t expire until 2018.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 6th, 2011 at 10:41 am and is filed under bits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.