Adventures on Yakima St

In Massachusetts when I was younger we called the Department of Motor Vehicles “The Registry”, most places call it the “DMV” and here in Washington it’s simply “The Department of Licensing” aka the “DOL”. No matter what you call it, I’ve always considered it a shoe-in for the gold medal at the World’s-Most-Boring-Place-on-Earth contest. Well that’s what I thought anyway, until I hit the DOL on Yakima St. in Tacoma yesterday.

I drove to Yakima St looking for a sleek metropolitan style building, but found the DOL tucked into a shopping center with only a cheesy blue “Driver Licensing” sign to indicate its presence. In an effort to save our tax dollars, the DOL thought it was a good idea to rent a store front in between a liquor store, a Subway and the dollar tree. The room, complete with tile floor, fluorescent lights and a shopping cart or two, was clearly once a Fred Meyer or a Safeway. Instead of aisles of groceries the body of the store was filled with rows and rows of hard plastic chairs. Most of which were occupied. Madison insisted on coming in, even though from experience I knew she was going to be bored out of her skull. Still, it was an alternative to sitting in my hot car with my sister, nephew and Max. Madison was a trooper she lasted about five minutes in the place before she decided she’d rather be squished in the back seat of the Prius reading picture books with her brother and cousin.

Bear with me as I try to run through the seamless and fantastic organizational process of the DMV (DOL, Registry whatever). Okay first you get in a long line to get a number, this number allows you to sit and relax in aforementioned chairs for the hour or so that you wait to be served. Back in my day we used to have to stand in line for the entire time, so actually now that I think of it, the take a number business is quite lovely. They give numbers that also have letters in front of them which clues in the kind- hearted and patient workers to the service you will need. For example R for renewal, E for enhanced and so on. There’s a big screen that announces who is next and which window to attend. So it isn’t horrible per se, especially if you have, let’s imagine, eight games of scrabble going with your friends via the iphone.

As I was standing in the first line I met a very nice woman about my age and her mom, who was also very likable. We did a little small talk and they even saved my spot in line when I had to dash off to the ATM machine to press clear since my entire account information was still on the screen. The woman my age had been to the DOL once already that morning, but had to go back to get her mom to vouch for her or something like that. I’m not quite clear on that piece. Anyway, I got my number and hunkered down in a chair a couple of rows behind my new friends. (We liked each other, but I didn’t want to seem desperate for DOL kinship).

Then there was the waiting. Waiting is a strange thing. It separates the strong from the weak, the sweet from the ugly and the kind from the kind-of-crazy. But really, when push comes to shove (and it will just about come to that in a few paragraphs so hang tight) even seemingly good people can go bad.

So there I was watching the clock, texting my sister, playing scrabble, checking my email and occasionally chatting with my fellow waitees. Things were slow, but not unpleasant really. I enjoyed a light conversation with the man next to me about the DOLs of the future, I suggested they’d be obsolete, everything could be done online; he took the other argument, the one where our world is so overpopulated and so many more people will be needing the service of the DOL, but with all the cut backs in the state there would never be enough employees and so on. What we were dealing with was nothing compared to the chaos of the future. Nice fellow, half empty glass and all. Our conversation was interrupted when R378 was called to counter number 1, “Ooh I’m R379, I am going to be next.” I bragged out loud. Mr. Half Empty was R402. He turned and struck up a conversation with the woman on his right. I went back to scrabble when suddenly there arose such a clatter…

R378 happened to be those nice women I met in line earlier-the ones who saved my spot. I have no idea what went down, but something happened and the mother, (who I will now refer to affectionately as my friend) started screaming and then started to storm out. Not wanting to be outdone the clerk behind the counter mumbled something that I think sounded like “Never come back” and of course my friend came charging back. “Excuse me?” She started shouting and wagging her finger. Her head was bopping a million miles a minute. Then she addressed the entire crowd—all of us in our rows and rows of seats. “You know these people at the DOL are rude. You know they’re rude to us.” She got some Yes ma’am and You got that rights from the crowd. “Oh look at that, he’s calling the police. Go ‘head.” (then to us again) “I don’t even think he’s really calling the police, but he can go ahead I ain’t afraid anyway.”

A few moments pass and the guy behind the counter is either really speaking to the police or doing what my aunt used to do when my cousins were naughty which would entail pretending to have an entire conversation with their father about how bad they were, when really she was just talking to the dial tone. I didn’t think he was pulling an Auntie Sue. This was the real deal, he was giving the police a description. Meanwhile the rest of us were whispering to each other, sure there was a moment or two when we all tried to look away or pretend to busy ourselves, but the pretenses were gone. This was quite a show. Now we were speculating and taking sides. My friend was going on and on, “That’s right, you call them. Uh-uh, you got it wrong, I’m five foot two. Wait a minute,” at this point she takes a big step back and puts herself in the middle of the room and says “Not black, I’m gooooolden brown.” She looks at all of us for our approving nods, which I felt obliged to give, given our relationship. You see forging a friendship at the DOL is something akin to being old army buddies.

I swear we made eye contact at that moment and I felt like I needed to say something, so I leaned over to Mr. HalfEmpty and told him that I met her earlier in line and she was really a great lady. Two rows in front of us a man with all of his front teeth, but strangely none of his back, said “I went to high school with the daughter. She was always a good kid. Real friendly.” I suddenly pictured the two of us—front tooth dude and me—as character witnesses at the trial. As if reading my mind, my friend gets up real close to the guy behind the counter who is still on the phone with the cops and then steps back and addresses us again. “I didn’t get physical with this guy. Did anyone here see me gettin’ physical? If you did you better speak up right now. (she paused, did this amazing full body wag and then said) That’s what I thought.See now I got my witnesses.”

“This is just like Social Security, except at Social Security they have cops on the premises.” Half Empty says to me. “They are so rude there. That’s why they have to have the cops. Ever been there?” “Uh-uh” I say feeling suddenly as if I have missed out on some exclusive club. “No? Really? In fact they were so rude last time I was there I’m going back with my lawyer on Thursday.” I had no idea what to say to this and then I blurted in my typical Little-Miss- Diplomat way “I bet it’s a hard job to be behind that counter all day.” That was stupid, so I followed that quickly with, “But still they should be respectful, there’s no reason to be so rude.” “Mmmhhmm.” He nodded noncommittally. I couldn’t tell if I had gotten out of his good graces or not and for some reason I cared. Just at that moment my number was called. “Good for you,” Half Empty remarked. Maybe he really was HalfFull after all or maybe he was just happy I was leaving.

Right around that time my friend and her daughter stepped outside, as did the unhappy DOL clerk and his supervisor. The cops came, but I am relieved to say they didn’t single me out as a character witness. Strangely, no one really wanted to hear my side of it. Well no one except the clerk behind window number seven, because the first thing she said to me when I approached the counter was, “Oh my God. What happened out there?”