so my driver's license expired back in december. i'd kind of just let it slide because the worst that could happen is that i get pulled over for speeding, ticketed for having an expired license, and then get my license reinstated via the normal avenues and have the ticket dismissed. at times, my knowledge of the inner workings of the law prompts me to violate it a little. oh, well. only the minor laws. besides, december 31 is the most POSSIBLY inconvenient day to have your license expire. it's the holidays, the tag agencies are closed, and i'm usually out of town.
so i had been dragging my feet about the reinstatement because of oklahoma's new anti-mexican (oops, i mean anti-immigration) legislation, which makes it much harder to obtain a state ID. i won't go into details in this post about the legislation lest my blood pressure rise too much, although that might be a good thing because when i went to the doctor this afternoon for this headcold-and-migraine (because of which i stayed home from work today, which is incredibly stress-inducing in and of itself) the nurse, after taking my blood pressure (which is historically very low anyway) said, "my GOD. are you alive??"
anyway, i decided it was finally time to get my license renewed after i got kicked out of the bar area in a restaurant in bricktown a couple of weekends ago. i got ID'd, and the girl (barely 21 herself) was like, "you can't sit here - this is expired." i said, "i'm twenty-seven years old, i'm pregnant, i'm an attorney, and i'm just going to sit here and eat buffalo wings and drink water while my boyfriend and his friends have a beer. are you serious?" she was. i hate her a little.
and also i had a FABULOUS time the last time i flew, trying to get through airport security with an expired license. they put you in the terrorist line. it's embarrassing. the people you're traveling with will make fun of you. don't try it.
used to be (pre-"MEXICANS ARE BAD"-legislation) that you could just go to the tag agency to get an expired license renewed. but with this new anti-immigration bill, if you let your license lapse, you have to go all the way down to the DMV and show your old license and TWO forms of ID (passport, birth certificate, or social security card), get re-fingerprinted, re-photographed, and if you don't have your old license to surrender, re-tested, too, and THEN you get permission to drive to the tag agency to get it p-r-i-n-t-e-d o-u-t, which they can't do for you at the DMV for reasons unknown to everyone, including the DMV guy. oookay. i feel so much safer now. this will definitely cut down on the incidents of new mexican groceries in east tulsa. good job! oklahoma was becoming dangerously diverse, anyway.
homeland security exercise: here is a picture of the new face of terrorism. how many WMDs can you find hidden in this image?
so AN-Y-WAY, i go down to the DMV and wait for 45 minutes. talk to the guy. get fingerprinted, photographed (apparently now you have to be fingerprinted and photographed EVERY TIME you have interaction with the DMV or tag agency to make sure you're the same person each time), fill out the paperwork, show my documentation, and get a little piece of paper approving me for a new license.
then i drive across town to the tag agency, wait for an hour, get re-fingerprinted, re-photographed, show all my paperwork again, and then i find out that my FINGERPRINTS NO LONGER MATCH from an hour and a half before. i've been told i have an adaptive personality, but that's just AMAZING. i'm like a shapeshifter. it's so cool.
so i get sent BACK to the DMV across town, wait for 45 minutes. talk to the guy. get re-fingerprinted, re-photographed, show my documentation, and get sent back to the tag agency.
then i drive BACK across town to the tag agency, wait for an hour, get re-fingerprinted, re-photographed, show all my paperwork again, pay $21.50, and FINALLY get my new driver's license FOUR HOURS AFTER STARTING THE PROCESS.
i can't even tell you how furious i was. this is four hours out of my WORK DAY.
the woman in front of me at the tag agency (the first time i was there) got sent back to the DMV to be re-photographed because at the DMV she took her picture with her glasses on, but at the tag agency they made her take them off ("it's the new rules"), and the "facial recognition software" wouldn't recognize her as the same woman, even though the agent admitted that he could clearly tell that it was her in both pictures.
tell me how all of this rigamarole is an efficient use of my, or the government's, time and money.
oh. and my new license still expires on december 31.
2 comments:
The whole Tag Agency in Oklahoma is a joke to me. I know that some of it is just because it is different from what I grew up knowing (DMV issues licenses, but in MN they mail them to you as they are printed off site with a million anti-theft things built in), but seriously, and extra layer of buerocracy and administrative costs.
WOW...I feel so sorry for you right now. When I got my seven fake id's in college it was like, nothing to go to the DMV and get those suckers printed off. It isn't even that hard here! We still do the MN thing Maria referenced where you go, show your old license, they take your pic for the new one and it just shows up in the mail a few days later. And, as if OK has SO MUCH tax surplus to be creating systems like that...I'll say it again. WOW.
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