arg.

i had to go to the DMV today... what a place. the thing is, you hate 'being there' before you even show up. it's one big room, poorly lit and always noisy. and not an endearing noisy, but a third-grade-classroom-after-lunch-on-a-friday-before-summer-vacation noisy. more than a dull roar, and all conversations / ringing phones / printing printers mash together in this hideous assault on your eardrums. from your first step inside, every living cell in your body wants to run far, far away.

and always, ALWAYS, in the middle of this room, is an awkward "island" composed of tired, dirty furniture: worn out desks and rickety shelves. and all cluttered with these computers that look like they were bought from an old library that shut it's doors in 1978. i mean, these poor people... the screens are smaller than most laptops', and are monochrome green! there isn't a manufacturing plant on the face of this planet that can make a monitor like that anymore! not to mention those printers... i don't know where they're finding those ink cartridges, yet you can be sure that the DMV is the only company in all of creation buying them...

anyways, it was an ordeal. it always is. people (impatiently) waiting. perpetual lines. the disgruntled citizen who can't quite get the picture from the nice lady up front. and we're all helplessly watching those dumb TVs hanging from the ceiling with the lucky little numbers of whose turn it finally is. of who gets to get out of their little plastic seat, while everybody else is watching (all wondering, at the same time as one big, collective DMV customer thought: "didn't i get in here before that guy?"), and venture out to that magnificent island.

i approached, and the lady didn't even look up at me. "hi," i offered. awkward moment. she's still mesmerized by the electronic relic of a computer right in front of her face. "i need a printout, the long one" i finally declare. then- contact! the most emotionless, matter-of-factly spoken "license please" anyone could have ever mustered. i was stunned. i gave her my license, tried some off-hand comment to at least make it seem like two human beings were in communication. but- nope. nothing. don't stir the natives...

arg. i just feel sorry for those employees. 'morale' doesn't even apply to a place like that. and the people they must have to deal with. it made me sad. defeated. i paid my five bucks, the printer had it's conniption, i took my printout and shoved off. intact. and then- everybody watched me leave... ("he's already done? my little number hasn't even appeared yet...") until next time.