DMV Express

I headed out early this morning to the Department of Motor Vehicles in Herald Square to update my state ID. It opens at 8:30 so I figured if I got there early, I wouldn't have to wait too long. Imagine my surprise when at 8:10 the line for the DMV was already wrapping around the corner to the middle of 34th street. Disheartened I headed to my office. Of all the things I wanted to get done today, updating my ID was the most important, so had to come up with another idea...

...which is why I headed over to the DMV Express at 34th St. 8th Ave. later in the morning. With my passport, my marriage certificate and forms I downloaded from the internet I walked in and received my ticket numbered B148. I sat down and waited. There were three numbers on the screen of people being helped. B146 was one of them so I thought for sure that I was going to be going very, very soon. I was wrong. A series of numbers beginning with G, F and E came up before mine. 20 minutes went by before I was helped, which is actually not bad in the world of the Department of Motor Vehicles, so I was pretty glad about that.

When I went over to counter 5 and explained to the nice man that I changed my name which is why I needed new state ID, he asked me if I had had my photo taken. Uh...no. This upset me a little bit because in that 20 minutes while I was waiting, I could have gotten my picture taken. I thanked him and started over toward the photo line but as I was walking away, he stopped me and gave me an express pass which allowed me to skip to the head of the 7 person line.

That done I went back to counter 5 where the nice man who was helping me told me that I needed to have my ID approved. Again. Something else I could have done in those 20 minutes I was waiting. He could see I was annoyed, told me to wait and very kindly got all the approvals I needed.

Nice guy. He is a burn victim. His scars looked old and I wondered when I was talking to him if he was one of those kids you hear about every now and then whose parents tried to burn them alive. That's how badly scarred he was. But gosh he was nice. We talked about allergies because we were both sniffling and I learned that not only was he allergic to rag weed and flowering trees but a whole list of foods as well. It turned out to be a pleasant experience.