TheBanyanTree: The Divisioin of Department of departments

[tobie at shpilchas.net]

Sunday, July 14th, 2019


Do not get in your little cars and go for a drive,

	My driver’s license was due for renewal come my birthday this year.  But as opposed to the last 20 years, this year, since I’ve evolved past the demarkation that classifies me officially as decrepit and cognitively crispy, the California Department of Motor Vehicles required that I take the written test for renewal.  Clearly ageist, but maybe only statistical data on the demographic, however selective.   Still, it’s the 16 to 19 year olds who need the scrutiny and, well, chaperones.  But they’re definitely cuter.  Cute matters, you know.  Do you see the Hungerford’s Crawling Water Beetle getting much attention on the endangered species list?

	Okay. That was gratuitous.  What I came to tell you was about my very personal trip to the DMV to take (and pass) the written driver’s test.  You know those kinds of tests, no matter what country you live in.  They’re written by the same people who write the high school obedience proficiency exams ( a nod to your history, P. Macinnis).  There is always a trick question or two designed to humble you. They are there for no other apparent reason, certainly not to demonstrate your comprehension of vital information.  Studying for this test, I figured there may have been some changes since I last took it.   I stole some time away from home, meaning I had to make sure someone was here to be with my mom so I could leave the house (Oh Lord! is that a long story) and toodled by the DMV to get the California 2019 Drivers Handbook.  I read the damn thing cover to cover and then took every online test available in preparation.  I don’t like to get less than 100%. It’s an illness.

	There were no appointments available at my local office.  You can make appointments online.  It’s a primitive system compared to others in the private sector and it’s obvious why.  We live in a democracy  —  at least we live in one when an excuse is needed for sloth.  The cutting edge appointment making programs are designed for a smaller demographic  —  smaller than a hundred fifty million anyway.  So when the government finally got both houses of Congress to hammer out an official intent to go electronic and lobbed it up to the President to sign, the cutting edge had gotten rather dull, and the whole idea had to to be revised to reflect compatibility issues with the 21st century technological milieu.  The bill went back to go through the rewrite and approval gamut.  This delayed the proposed online appointment system for another few years.  But all things come to those who wait (this is where the concept of, "unto the 7th generation," comes in handy. Somewhere down the dynastic line, that thing that finally comes to those who wait arrives to a surprised, or disinterested, or illegitimate descendant.)  Let’s just cut to the far-from-cutting-edge chase, and say government approval has been secured for installing a country wide online appointment scheduling system.  Did I discuss the requisite appropriation of funding?  Well, simply put, there are a few more than too many bureaus in the federal government that will be needing this new system installed, and each of them will have to have this system redesigned or tweaked or surgically altered to their individual idiosyncratic specifications.  You understand that stuff like this takes time.  Each of these bureau specific scheduling systems, the Feds decide, must go through their own department channels to procure funding.  But there is an across the board awareness that the high tech advancement clock is ticking and the scheduling systems are going to have to keep up to be compatible with an ever changing world.  At this point in the process, the only reliable constant still remaining is that there is still a war in Afghanistan and Iraq and a few other places we’re not supposed to know about.  The mandate to go electronic is handed down from the federal government to the states so the states have been going through their own individual processes of proposals, vetting approvals, revisions, vetting, rejections, revisions, approvals and bids from tech vendors, more proposals and wrestling for approval, all with the understanding that the federal government must be dealt with, meaning haggling, negotiating, complying, and of course, waiting.  You understand that stuff like this takes more time. Do all things come to those who wait?  This would be a good time to revisit the validity of the aphorism.  

	After having made my appointment with the DMV to take the written test and apply for a, "REAL ID," (rendering all other IDs fake), I see where a dictatorship has its advantages.  There definitely is a trade-off, however. With a dictatorship we don’t have much choice about who it is that will be fucking us over and it wouldn’t be only for four years at a time.  Plus, since a dictatorship obviates the need and function of all the representation business, eliminates the slow grinding years of the houses of Congress, the courts slogging through the proper protocol and appropriate channels procedural crap, there would be a lot of people out of jobs and what would we all do with the extra time?  Actually, not as much of a problem as you might at first think.  The dictator in chief would tell us what to do with the time and what not do with the time.  And I guess a lot of that extra time would go to the, "run and hide," protocol.

	So I made my appointment with the DMV online.  The deadline was my birthday (coming right up, folks) and I went online in April.  That’s roughly four months in advance.  I know, excessive early bird behavior, but I thought it a good idea at the time.  The earliest appointments available for the branch office closest to me were after my birthday.  I had to hunt around for an available appointment that would happen before my driver’s license expired. That is what brought me to El Cerrito at 3:00 pm on the 11th, only one and a quarter business days before my birthday.  So I have dived into the belly of the monster and without having been digested, I accomplished my task and escaped to tell the tale.

There’s more.  But you’re tired.  I’ll give you time to read (or not read; it will take time not to read) all that.  Then I’l slap the rest on you.


Sunday, and Mom is organizing her pills for the next week. She is 99 now. Tomorrow I’ll be 72. WTF!


Love,

Tobie























Variety is the spice of life.  Lack of variety is the spouse of life.   THS


Tobie Shapiro
mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>