DMV Daycamp Part 1

Should have known at 7am when the line extended around the circumference of the building that as the earlier people in line broke down their tents and campsites from the previous night waiting to get a spot near the front door, I might be in for a long day at the local DMV office. Not that this particular office happened to be the only one located in Las Vegas, in fact there probably is somewhere between four and eight within the valley, furthermore technology has caught up even in the government sector which historically known for being ineffiecent and slow Nevada DMV is on the internet where I usually handle any affairs in regards to the re-registration of either of my cars. Unfortunately, they don't handle address changes to driver's licenses online or changes in title, maybe the second one, either way, it was time to trade in my official looking identification for the new and improved Mickey Mouse style ID that looks like something you might have been manufactured in one of those many machines found in carnival midways back in my youth. My junior high school ID looked more official than the new Nevada ID, maybe having the card look so fake would cut down on the ever rampant false identification sites that any high school and college freshmen could easily point you towards, Kinkos could have produced a finer piece of work.

Either way here I am stuck in line with the rest of the Las Vegas masses and I am not talking about your Summerlin, Henderson, or Southern Highlands type crowds, were talking poly-lingual, multicultural, and for the most part working class community of Las Vegas, there is already an older lady behind me complaining about the length of the line, disclaiming, how can there not be any jobs, they need more people in this building to make the line short, even with Obama in office, she cannot seem to get her justice, marooned on this desert island for the next 4 to 6 hours, the first one or two hours out in the sun, which may have induced her disgruntled nature in the first place, her man to the side, seem to be all too familiar with this brand of complaint, doing his best to stay silent in order to appease her momentary anger at the Nevada DMV. I thought does this happen to old people, do they just complain, and I'm not going to call out women, but maybe it is the fact I grew up around a mother who did and still does nothing but bitch about things she refuses to handle or has no control over in the first place.

I did not want to go to the DMV today, but jeez, I have to fly out of town for work, for another week, spent the last week out of town, and the week before that living in a hotel trying to kick a drug habit, so life goes on, yet for some it never is rosy or upbeat, only that dark cloud that seems only hang over them if for no other reason for these type of people to have an excuse, an outlet, a reason to be so negative, hostile, and aggressive all at the same time, this behavior makes me nervous and when it is a stranger things can feel weird enough to the point where you want to tell the person to shut the fuck up, punch them, or leave, not enough psychologist in the world to undo all the angst, conflict, and self pity I sense in these people, my mother especially, make them all run for cover, though her public persona is nothing like the paraniod, schizophrenic android that I witness everytime I visited her or take her shopping, it is like being a kid again after she has come home from work, divorced with no husband or other person to workout her frustrations with work and her life in general, my mother would dump all her emotions in my inbox, lap, brain, turning me into a short fused, quick tempered, distrustful machine. It has taken nearly 40 years to pry myself loose from all of those hollow emotions and at first when I agreed for her to move to Las Vegas I did it with a medium sense of regret, thinking how I spent most of my life distancing myself from her in order to be spared the wrath of spite blossoming from her mouth like a volcanic explosion.

Contrarily, her presence out here up to today has taught some vauable lessons about myself and how much she has been an influence of my behavior towards others, like studying a animal in their natural environment being around my mother has helped understand just how twisted up these dark buds inside me became this bouquet of evil, a golem of spite, hatred, and frozen emotion, in the end her presence led me out of the tunnel from all the crazy shit going on around me within the confines of Las Vegas as well as the world.

Finally inside the DMV where a lady at the door works as controller, receptionist, and bouncer all in one breath, as many would be line cutters make their best attempts with fleeted footed and deviled tongue to make their way past this gatekeeper to the halls of bureaucracy. The woman at the door was no easy target, all the classic mindgames had been given a shot, the Trojan Horse, the old heart attack routine, nothing fazed this lady who sent person after person to the back of the line or out back to their car to mumble to themselves, like insane homeless people do on the streets of downtown Las Vegas, over being denied plotting their next challenge at the gates of Nevada DMV. Have to split, pick this up when I get back, off to the airport, stay tuned.