My Seattle send off back to SF was marked by drunkeness and the disappearance of my California driver's license. Ah, no big deal right? Get on the DMV website, fill out a form, get a new one in the mail. If you think that is the process, you are so very wrong. I went on the website and it told me that replacing a license requires going to a DMV office. OK, well at least you can make an appointment on the website. So I tried to do that, and it tells me the earliest appointment is August 26th...I don't think it's a great idea to be driving around without it for that long. So I figure I'll go early and endure the 2 hour wait. So off I go, armed with a Cosmo magazine and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I ended up waiting 3 hours and 23 minutes. People all around me were bitching and complaining. e.g. "why are those two guys going out for a break when they've only been working 2 hours?" My ass was numb by the time I got my turn to visit the friendly DMV worker. Then I realize why they are so damn slow there. He spoke reeeeeally painfully slowly. He wasted valuable time making jokes and telling me my name was pretty. The TV screen had advised all of us in the waiting room to enquire about identity theft, so I did. The dude says "identity theft?, hmm well I guess you could be more careful and not lose your ID next time. That's about it." I hope I never have to wait at the DMV for anything again.

The funny thing is spending so much time in that waiting room you get to see a lot of things and talk to a lot of people. One guy told me he just came from the Daly City DMV where security had to deal with an 80 year old man who was having a tantrum about the wait. On another occasion two ladies got into a scuffle about who was next in line. After a couple hours I tuned out the complaining for fear of losing my mind. When you do that, you begin to pay attention to other things. Most notably the 2 preschool age kids behind me. All they had was a couple matchbook cars and some plastic chairs to roll them around on. They were having such a fun time playing with those cars for hours it makes you wish that you could be a kid again. I think it's only when you're free of pressures, expectations, mental checklists and the like, that you can keep yourself amused for so long with so little. Otherwise you spend the time reviewing those mental checklists, wondering if recent decisions made were the right ones, making plan Bs in case current plans fall through and on and on it goes. Or maybe it's just me.