This morning I went to apply for my new license. I was excited when I showed up at the DMV and there was no line. I took the vision test. I took the road signs test. I got to bypass the driving test, thanks to my MSF certification. I took the written exam (now a touch-screen test), which I passed with 100%. I paid my $17.00. I sat for a new picture. Then my license got jammed in the printer, along with the ones belonging to the two women ahead of me.

Other licenses continued to print out. The people before us left. The people after us left. One DMV examiner took the machine apart. A second examiner took the machine apart. Other licenses printed out. The machine seemed to be working again. They reprinted our licenses. They weren't our licenses, because they no longer remembered who we were. I found this discouraging, since our photos were visible on the screen and we were sitting three feet away.

Finally, the two people in front of me--Barbara and Michelle--got their licenses. Mine did not print out. They took the machine apart again. Other licenses printed out. The machine seemed to be working again. They printed my license. The holograms were missing. They reprinted my license. They gave me my license and told me to make sure it looked OK. It looked great. Except it wasn't my license. It was Michelle's license. Michelle had already left.

"Who are you?" they asked me for the fourth time.

They reprinted my license. It looked fine. I left, an hour-and-a-half after arriving. There was still no one waiting in line.

Thank God I don't have to go back for another 4 years.