It could mean Help or it could mean
Secretary of State. In this case, it
means both.
My birthday is in a few days and
being the detail oriented person that I am, I JUST noticed (on the paperwork
that the Secretary of State sends six weeks in advance of the birth date) that
I have to renew my license in
person! Oops.
So I went down there yesterday. And the SOS did not disappoint! They
were as rude and bored as I expected them to be. First of all, the
first lady I talked to, who gave me my number, talked super fast. It was like three beats between what she said
and my actually processing it. I
understand they say the same things every single day, but I don’t hear those things every
single day.
Oh, and the number she gave
me? Zero-Zero. I think karma is trying to tell me something
. Twice.
After about 15 minutes, the counter-help
lady called my number. But to me, it
sounded like someone just said “Hey” really loud so I dismissed it.
She called it again, this time I actually heard “zero.” I grabbed my absolutely
adorable purse from 31, stood up and before I could take two steps, she called
One. I trotted up and said, “hold it, I'm zero.” She said, "Are you zero or one?"
(didn’t we just go through this??) I said, "I'm zero."
She said, "Well I called it twice." I felt like saying ,
"and your point would be...?"
I will admit that the rest of the transaction went smoothly, aside from
the fact that her words were really flat, “sign this”, “pay this”, etc. What cracked me up was when she took my
picture for my license. She told me to
smile. I thought, take your own advice
lady.
Wow, can I have the part of my tax
dollars back that went to pay her salary?
And while I was getting said
photo taken, there was a very short and very thin Hispanic man at the counter
next to me, literally with hat in hand.
His counter-lady was a very large black woman who looked like she just
found out she was getting audited by the IRS.
The contrast between the two was like the gigantic power chair behind a
large desk and the kiddie chair on the other side to make the visitor feel
small and weak.
 |
| "Come in lad! Don't let my enormous |
|
| chair intimidate you!" |
|
|
|
Anyway, I heard her say
to him, “Is it an 0-2 Honda? Which is
it? (dramatic sigh) Gimmie your license,
I’m gonna have to look ALL this up.
(another dramatic sigh) if I can
even find any of it.” I thought to
myself, “Wow, you mean you are going to have do your job? You are going to have to perform the tasks
that the state pays you to perform? On a
job, which you have, unlike a hefty bunch of people in our state? (who you can find over at another government
office, the Unemployment Office. They
actually smile over there.) Were we supposed
to feel sorry for this woman? Whatever.
Oh, and I am proud to announce that
my new drivers license photo looks like a "before" picture.
(Before rehab, before Weight Watchers, before hair coloring was invented,
before Prozac was covered by insurance, etc.
Pick one, any of them will do).
