A Day at the DMV

Despite the fact that I was reminded to renew my driver's license twenty times while I was in Texas, I still procrastinated, put it off, forgot about it. My friends reminded me yet again the other day. Still, I didn't take care of it until today. Now I'm not sure how the DMV works in other states or countries, but I'll give you a short run-down of how it works here in Illinois.

I enter the Department of Motor Vehicles and walk up to the front desk where a grumpy person who hates his life glances up at me and says, "Why are you bothering me?" fine upstanding citizen greets me.
"Hi! I need to get my license renewed," I happily tell the gentleman.
Without a word or any semblance of human expression, he hands me a paper with a number on it and points to his right.
"Thank you!" I say as head in the direction he's pointing.

I arrive in a waiting area of sorts and take a seat. There are twenty happy state employees just waiting on pins and needles to help me. So naturally, I sat there for fifteen minutes until one of them decided to do some work, and called my number. I approached a woman who was much too busy talking to her coworker to bother looking up at me.

"You should go to this bar with me. They play country music there. Oooo! We could call you Lurlene! I never give out my real name when I meet people at a bar. If a guy asks me my name, I tell him Maria and hope that my friends don't come by and call me Emily in front of him. I think we should go to the country bar and we'll call you Lurlene. Isn't that hilarious?"
"Hee hee hee! I never use my real name either! And if someone asks me for my phone number, I always say 588-2300. (You may only get this if you live in Chicagoland, but it's the number for a carpet company and for like 500 years, they've sang that stupid phone number on their commercials. Everyone has that number etched in their brains.)
"Hee hee hee. That's funny Lurlene!

I mentally thank God that I'm married (even if it's to a man who makes Kool-Aid fish and paints the insides of closets) because I cannot imagine being on the single scene with folks like these. Seeing that they have no intention of ending their exchange of dating tips any time soon, I cleared my throat and asked, "Excuse me. Am I in the right place?"

Maria, Emily, Lurlene's friend, never looked up at me, but stuck out her hand in my general direction. Does she want money? A handshake? Maybe she's just putting some sort of Vulcan mind meld on me? (I've never seen Star Trek and have no idea what I'm talking about, so if you are one of those freaks people who are obsessed with all things Trekky, please don't feel the need to write and correct my terminology because I actually don't care. All I'm saying is that customer service is NOT their number one priority.)

Anyway, I plopped my old license in Lurlene's friend's outstretched hand. She looked at it, typed on her computer, and asked, "Is your address the same?"

"Yep."

"Is your height and weight the same?"

This is the part where I snorted a little. I replied sarcastically, "Yeah, I'm still 125 pounds." I laughed hysterically thinking that was pretty darn funny as it's quite clear that I haven't seen 125 since Jimmy Carter was in office. Apparently Lurlene's friend wasn't amused as she looked at me deadpan, and said, "So it's 125?"

"Umm no. It's ummm, well, it's kinda, umm," I stammered, not really wanting to tell her the truth.

She rolled her eyes, as if to say, "Look lady, it doesn't matter what your driver's license says, you're a cow and no number you give me is going to change that. Now hurry up because I have bar hopping plans to make."

I decided that lying was the best policy and told her to put 150. Ha! I only wish I was 150.

She pushed a paper at me and, yawning with boredom, told me to sign it and then take my old license to the cashier in yet another line.

I stood in the cashier's line and encountered yet another friendly, smiling face. I'm not positive, but I think she said, "That'll be $10 and you suck for taking up my time." I paid her and moved on to line number four.

This is where I had the vision test. I'm pretty sure I could be legally blind and still pass. "Look into the machine. Do you see any letters?"

"Yes. G, B, T..."

He cut me off, "You don't need to tell me what they are. Do you see flashing lights on the right, the left, or both sides?"

"The right."

"Good enough! Go over there to the update counter now."

OK then. I was able to bypass the written test line and the behind-the-wheel test line this time. I walked over to the update counter and stood in line there. Finally I was greeted by yet another fun, friendly, happy-to-be-alive DMV employee. I handed her my old license and paperwork. She directed me to take a seat in another waiting area. I waited there for my name to be called so I could get my picture taken.

The woman who called my name and took my picture actually smiled at me. I couldn't figure out how she ever managed to get a job there. I stood against the backdrop and smiled. After she took the picture (or so I thought), I relaxed my stance and made a goofy face at Savannah who was waiting for me. That's when she clicked the camera. She looked at the picture and said something along the lines of, "That's a terrible picture! You look like a serial killer. Stand back over there."

Now, I should have been ecstatic that she noticed it was a bad picture and let me have a "do-over", right? I mean, I'd hate to be caught speeding some day and have the police officer arrest me just because I look like a psychopath in my driver's license photo. But (and this is the really pathetic part) I thought to myself, "Oh bummer. If she made me keep the awful photo, that would make a pretty good blog post!" I know, I know. I warned you it was pathetic.

So I went to another waiting area until my new license was ready. It actually didn't turn out too badly. Well, except for the part where Savannah brought to my attention that I was only wearing one big, gold hoop earring and I had my sunglasses pushed up in my hair like a headband. I'm such a dork. But still, I was only at the DMV for 4 1/2 hours and I only had Savannah with me, and IL has pretty new licenses with red on them! So all in all it was good.

If This is Correct, Say Yes

I didn't post last night because I couldn't get an internet connection until 11:00 pm and I was too ticked off to write.

Something happened to my router. Or maybe it was my DSL. Or something. Anyway, I couldn't get online. I learned something about myself when I couldn't get online. I have an addiction. When I couldn't log on, I started hyperventilating, freaking out that I was missing ...I don't even know what I was missing, but I was sure I was missing SOMETHING! Something big and important and terribly exciting! My heart was beating 200 times a minute and I started twitching. I, the person who used to say that computers were evil, was going through withdrawal because I couldn't connect to the cyberworld.

Anyway, that wasn't even the frustrating part. The mind-numbing, maddening, irritating, aggravating, annoying, exasperating, infuriating, riling, troubling, trying, vexatious (thank you thesaurs.com) part of my little extravaganza tonight was the two hours I spent on the phone in a maze of voice menus. TWO HOURS!

Welcome to AT&T.
For Spanish blah blah blah numero uno.
I see you're calling from xxx-xxx-xxxx. Is that the phone number listed on your AT&T account?

ME: Yes.

Thanks. I'll just look that up. Now, in a few words please say the purpose of your call. You can say things like "I want to pay my bill", or "I want new phone service." To speak to a service representative, say "agent".

ME: I can't get online.

It sounds like you'd like to make a payment. Is that correct?

ME: Umm no. Duh. I have internet problems.

Lets try this another way. If you're calling about payments, say "payments".

ME: NO! Not payments. Internet service!

OK which service needs repair, phone, internet, tv, or none of those?

ME: INTERNET!!!

I think you said you're calling to repair your dial up service. If this is correct, say "yes".

ME: YES!

My mistake. Please say one of the following: phone, internet, tv...

ME: INTERNET! It's always been internet. It's still internet!

To get you to the right place, I need to know where you're calling from. Are you calling from the same number as your high speed internet line?

ME: Yeah.

I think you said, "phone services." If this is correct, say "Yes".

ME: NO!

To get you to the right place, I need to know where you're calling from. Are you calling from the same number as your high speed internet line?

ME: YES!

Just a moment while I look up your account.

ME: You do that. @@

I'm sorry, I do not understand. Let's try this another way.
To get you to the right place, I need to know where you're calling from. Are you calling from the same number as your high speed internet line?

ME: YES!

Main menu: please say the option that best describes the issue you're calling about. For set up, password or connectivity issues, please say "tech. support". For billing questions or account services, say "billing". To hear these options again, you can say "repeat".

ME: GRRRRRRRR!!! You've got to be kidding me!

I'm sorry. I did not understand. If you're having problems with your high speed internet and would like tech support, say "yes".

ME: I'm having problems with this stupid voice menu! Can I talk to an actual person? Do you have any of those there???

It sounds like you want to pay your bill. Is this correct?

At this point, I whipped the phone across the room and grabbed a beer.

I tried calling the customer service line for my router, thinking that maybe someone there could help me. I was on hold for 42 minutes. That's not an exaggeration. FORTY-TWO MINUTES! I heard Rhapsody in Blue, Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven's Fifth, Barcarolle, William Tell Overature, and Danse Macabre. I started having flashbacks of piano lessons as a child. I never did talk to anyone there.

I tried AT&T two more times and each time, after navigating their system for several minutes, I finally got through to an actual person. Of course, when I finally got a person on the phone, they didn't speak English! I guess they might technically have been speaking English, but it was so broken that it might as well have been Greek or Ubbi Dubbi. Why? Why is this? And why do these people act so annoyed that you're bothering them with your obviously stupid questions? Where's the customer service? From the cashier at the grocery store, to the floor help at the clothing store, to the customer service rep. on the other end of the phone, more often than not I encounter someone rude, annoyed, or seemingly bored. What, can no one smile? Can nobody be helpful? Can't anyone at least pretend to care about your needs?

It's so rare to find a person who will not only help you with a smile, but who will go out of their way to give excellent customer service. Whenever I encounter such a person, I make sure to let them know how much I appreciate their help. I also try to find a manager so I can praise the employee that took the time and effort to give great service.

Anyway, at 8:30, I completely gave up, ran out to Circuit City in a blizzard, hoping to get there before they closed, and bought a new router. Voila! Problem fixed. I got back online at 11:00 pm.

It's been a fun two days here. I also learned that my oldest son hasn't turned in numerous assignments at school. He's grounded until the second coming. Today my youngest son, who has been totally potty trained for over a year, decided to poop in the garbage can. Why? Why do they do things like this? For the love of all that is Holy, WHY??? I made him dump it out into a garbage bag. Then, apparently offended by the stench of his own poop, he figured he'd spray some air freshener around. Unfortunately he grabbed a can of lemon-fresh Pledge instead. He sprayed furniture polish into the air and it landed in a waxy coat on the laminate floors. They are now more slippery than the streets outside (which are really slippery because we just got another 5 feet of snow here.)

Speaking of snow - the kids had a snow day today oh joy. Austin and Savannah went outside and instead of building a fort, they made a snowmom and 6 snow babies. Great, right? However, they used my husband's car jack to lift the middle snowball up so they could situate it on top of the bottom ball. My husband was less than thrilled with this.

It's still snowing here. What are the chances they'll go back to school tomorrow? What are the chances I'll stay sane if they don't?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edited to add - a lot of people have written to tell me that they aren't getting notification from Blogarithm when I've posted. Some people have said that they only get 2 or 3 updates a week. I don't know why this is happening, but I added (actually Angie added) a Feedburner button right above the Blogarithm one. I guess you can just subscribe there to get updates when I create a new entry.
Also, I was nominated for some blog awards. I put the buttons for those along the right side of this blog. If your have the time or inclination, you can vote for my blog in any or all of the categories.
Thank you!