Adventure at the DMV
(December 12, 2018) – Several weeks ago I received a Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles form in the mail reminding me that my driver’s license would expire on my December birthday and stating that this year I had to appear in person at a DMV office. That certainly sounded like no fun at all. To top it off, the form included information on acquiring a “REAL ID” if I wanted to, instead of just a standard driver’s license. What’s a REAL ID, I asked and you may well ask? Beginning in October of 2020, the federal government will require an approved form of ID (the REAL ID) to use as identification to fly domestically or to enter certain secure federal facilities like military bases. Most importantly, TSA won’t accept a standard driver’s license with your boarding pass to let you on a plane. I figured I might as well get the REAL ID now. Check out the REAL ID Act online for more info. The only physical difference between a REAL ID and a standard license in Virginia is a star in the upper right corner that indicates it is acceptable for federal purposes. To get a REAL ID Virginia Driver’s License you have to prove your identity, that you’re here legally, and you have to prove Virginia residence. You also have to provide proof of your SSN, if you have one. And you have to provide your current license. I wanted to get the REAL ID done in one trip so I was sure to take more documents to the DMV than I needed. The day before I planned to go I pulled out my passport, last year’s 1099-R (a retirees’W-2), our mortgage statement (proves residence), two other pieces of mail with home address and postmark (you’d be surprised how many pieces of mail don’t have postmarks anymore) which also prove residence, my birth certificate (faded and kinda crumbly!), and our marriage license and certificate (for name change proof). To get the list of the required and commonly used documents, go to dmvnow/realid.
Two days ago I made my trip to the DMV office. Here’s how it went:
930am – Leave home with documents for “REAL ID” in a pocket folder, driving to the mall where our closest DMV office is located
940 – Arrive at closest entrance to the DMV office, a door into JCPenney. Penney’s doesn’t open ‘til 1000am, so there is actually a sign on the glass window saying “If you want to go to the DMV before 1000, go to a mall entrance. We’re not open.” Nice. Back to the car for the drive around. (It’s a big mall.)
947 – Re-park near a mall entrance, walk through the mall the long way, and arrive at DMV office. I walk through the empty zig-zag “rope-line” to be about 4th in line inside the door (this will be significant much later in my story), watch the uniformed (but unarmed)security guard show a “No Food or Drink” sign to a young woman a couple of places in front of me. She then dropped her three-quarters-full Starbucks cup into the trashcan. How much did THAT cost her?
953 – I make it up to the first counter. I am friendly, smiling, and making a little small talk with the counter lady. There are two counter ladies at this first spot, both taking customers. My counter lady asks what I want to do at the DMV, I say, “REAL ID”, she asks to see my documents, tells me I did a good job with what I brought (thanks and yay!), she hands me a form to fill out (looks a lot like the form I received in the mail – which I’ve already filled out but apparently didn’t need AT ALL). She’s highlighted the important sections on the new form. She also gives me my waiting number. I am I115. The “I” and the “1s” are confusing but I think I can handle it. We’ll see.
954 – I take a seat for what I think is my first of several, successive waits.
958 – I finish filling out the form. When the pair next to me gets called 2 minutes after they sat down, I’m motivated to talk to the man next to me – he’s been here for an hour already with other family members. Not sure what they’re mission is…and why so many relatives are needed. Perhaps a show of support for some DMV stressful situation?
1003 – I notice there are eight-ish windows open at the counter. There are about 32 of us seated in rows, waiting for our turn. There’s a TV monitor hanging high in the corner of the big waiting room. The monitor shows who’s being served at which window. The numbers and letters for who gets called next make no sense (as hubbie informed me before I came today) so you can’t tell if you’re next or 50th in line. (E250 was followed by A11at the same window. Wha?)
1009 – I’m still patiently waiting. I have pessimistically allotted two hours for this entire adventure. I believe that’s what hubbie endured back in July. (Plan for the worst, hope for the best? I do have to get to yoga in three hours!) Hubbie’s and my licenses both expire this year. Maybe our license expiration dates synched up when we moved 6 years ago, or maybe it’s our five-year age difference. Anyway, his renewal visit, for a standard license, took two hours at the same DMV office in July. How long will my experience here take? While sitting patiently I look around and notice a disproportionate number of my fellow waiting people are on crutches…is this a thing? Hurt yourself (or have surgery) and go to the DMV to get your driver’s license renewed or register your car??? Or register the new car you had to buy when your car was wrecked in the accident when your leg was injured? Oops! Or you’ve got the time because you’re too hurt to go to work but you can make it all the way into the mall office to get DMV administrative stuff done? None of the crutch-bearing people are near me, so I don’t get the chance to interrogate them.
1015 – Time is ticking by. I don’t know how many lines I will eventually have to wait in. I keep thinking my wait has really just begun. Are there separate lines for handing over paperwork? Then another wait in line for the eye test? Then another wait for the photo? Then a final line to pay? I might have to wait over and over! I’m finding it hard to play a game on my phone as I’m worried I’ll miss my number being called and be stuck here until closing time. I know that’s ridiculous because they’ve called A12 six times – even after he made it to his assigned window several minutes ago. I definitely won’t miss I115 if it’s called six times! I’ve also brought reading material; however, engaging with my magazine seems like it will take even more of my attention away from listening and watching for my number. Come on, I115!
1019 – I’m curious. I want to get up and walk around to look at the different kinds of lines at the windows. How many will I have to wait in? Plus, I want to check out the different vanity plate formats displayed on the wall. But I like my chair location with its good view of the TV monitor and good view of the counter windows. So I’m getting territorial (it’s what I do!), and staying seated right here! I don’t want to lose my good spot!
1025 – Looking around I notice there are 6″ x 8″ blue and silver metal placards (the colors of a road sign, get it?) riveted to the large, black plastic, kitchen-sized trash cans in the waiting area. The signs say, “DMV PROPERTY” – as if folks regularly come to the DMV Office to steal the 4-foot tall trashcans…?
1029 – Oh, boy! I115 is called! Hooray! I’m up out of my seat like a shot! My number came up just a about two minutes after I114! How did THAT logical sequence happen? (Okay, there may have been an R number or a C number in those two minutes but it turns out you should track the numbers that sound like yours! You may be next!) I walk up, as directed by the disembodied voice, to window #5. Window #5 counter lady looks at me expectantly, so I hand over my license and the filled out new form. She still is looking at me expectantly so I decide to start with the biggie and hand over my passport for identification. Then I hand her my 1099-R (as a retiree, I get this instead of a W-2). Incidentally, it not only has my SSN on it but also my current address, so it also should be a proof of residence – but I then hand over our mortgage statement with my name on it anyway, for proof of residence. I also start to wave my two pieces of postmarked mail, and my USAA insurance documents with address (is insurance a “utility”? Later, at home, I ask hubbie to add my name to the utilities, please). I also wave my birth certificate and marriage license but counter lady seems satisfied with what she has. So I’ll say this…I think all I really needed was my passport, my W-2 equivalent (even from last year!), and maybe the mortgage statement. I’m not even sure I needed that last one. But I brought a folder-full of documents just to be sure. No way was I going to do this twice. Counter lady starts to enter my data. Then she points to the machine that I haven’t noticed yet, just to my right on the counter in front of me. It’s the eye test machine. “Please read the first line.” It’s twelve (sixteen?) letters, like at the eye doctor. Thankfully, it’s easy. She says, “Good.” She’s still entering information. She then points to the free-standing camera that’s just a bit off the counter, closer to me, tells me to back up to the side wall on my other side and smile. Wait! It’s all happening here, at her spot? I don’t have to go to another line? Wow! And whoopee! She gives me a moment to straighten my hair. I smile, she flashes the camera at me. I don’t worry a whole lot about how crummy this photo will be because last night I looked at my current, soon-to-be-expired license and the photo is black and white. When did licenses start using black and white photos? (Okay, apparently many years ago.) I figure you can only look so good in black and white, shrunk down on a plastic card, so why worry about the photo? It’ll look bad, undoubtedly. Then she points to a small digitizing signature pad. I ask if this is for the signature on the license, she says yes, so I slow down my usual scrawl so that it’s a little bit more legible. Then I click “I Agree” several times on a different digital pad for “my info is correct” and some voting stuff. An interesting thing then happens. My counter lady switches places with the counter lady next to her (is this a double-check? for REAL ID? Hmmm.), they look at the other’s workstation monitors and do a little typing, then switch back. My counter lady and I chat about retirement while the system processes. (Incidentally, I heard I116 called after I was with my counter lady for about 4-5 minutes. So not a bad wait time for I116 either. And somewhat in sequence.) My counter lady hands me a printed, letter-sized piece of paper, my temporary license, to sign. She tells me my new REAL ID will come in the mail in 7-10 days. My current license expires in five days, so I’ll use the temporary license in the interim.
1038 – I’m out of here. As I walk out, a man’s voice says, “Hey, Amy!” It’s Ian, who runs the clay supply store. He is standing outside the DMV door, in the zig-zag ropeline, waiting to see the first two counter ladies to get his number. There are now about 30 other people waiting in line with him outside the DMV office door (as well as a similar number in chairs in the big room). I didn’t have to wait out here at all. When I told him how long I’d been at the DMV, the woman behind him jumped in the conversation and said, “But the website said the wait was just 30 minutes!” I replied, “You haven’t even started to wait yet. You’re still outside.” Sorry! As I walked away, after wishing Ian a Merry Christmas, I remembered my last visit to his store. His sporty little car was not in the parking lot so I figured he wasn’t there. Turned out he was there, driving a loaner car because just a couple of days before, in daytime traffic, when a stoplight turned green, a deer tried to jump across cars at a suburban traffic intersection. The deer landed on his little car, destroying the hood, windshield and roof, pretty much totaling his car. When I saw him at the DMV, I assume he was titling a new car on my driver’s license day.
To wrap up, my odyssey at the DMV turned out to be just a visit, not a real odyssey. Fifty minutes total, which I consider a triumph. I chose to go to the DMV on a Monday. The office opened at 800am, I got there at 947am. The line was much longer – just to get in – when I was finished and left at 1038. The night before going to the DMV, I put effort into being prepared. And while I was there, I tried to use some common sense: be friendly and patient. While I stood at window #5, I heard a DMV worker at window #3 telling a customer that Fairfax Station was her (the customer’s) city. It’s on her mailing address! How could she not know her own address??? So, no guarantees, but with a little common sense, a little preparation, a little patience, and a strong effort to be friendly – your next visit to the DMV might not be too painful!
