Division of Motor Vehicles

I paid off both of my cars in May and have been needing to take the titles into the DMV to have them cleared since then. (I know I procrastinate way too much). Today I remembered to bring the titles and take care of it. As you all know, dealing with the DMV is always an adventure, mostly due to the long wait.

I first went to the South Jordan office since it's the closest one to work. Upon arrival, I saw there was a line out the door and down the sidewalk. I got out and approached the line and overheard the conversation that the reason the line was so long was b/c that office was closing this week due to the new office opening near the prison, and I guess some folks didn't want to have to drive that far next week. No matter where I went it would be worse than usual due to the state of Utah closing it's offices now on Fridays. So I decided to head north to the Salt Lake office.

I arrived and drove around the parking lot a few times to finally find a space, so I knew it would be busy as usual inside. I went in and got my number and then just stood there. Soon a security guard came up to the group I was with and said that we couldn't stand that close to the door for fire code reasons, so we all shuffled in with the hundreds of others. I looked at my number and it was 567, they were just serving 530, so not too bad except there were also the 0, 600, 700, and 900 series numbers to be served.

Here is where it gets interesting. I love to people watch like in airports, or malls, and now even the DMV. I just stood there, not wanting to crowd into a chair near someone with entirely too much BO. There were a few moms there with 4 or 5 kids running around the place (personally, I would think that would be an errand worthy of a sitter). Then I saw a couple come in that weren't happy with how long the wait was, so they started approaching people and asking if they had a 500 series number and would pay them $20 to trade so they could avoid the long wait. I was irritated at this, but decided if they asked me I would gladly take the $20. Well, I soon saw number 550 served and it was them, so they cut about 20 minutes ahead of me. Lucky ducks, too bad I"m too cheap to bribe my way in line : ) I then saw this little old lady that was half hunched over and took about 10 minutes to walk across to her window using her cane the whole way. I just wondered where her relatives were and if they knew this 105 year old was there at the DMV trying to deal with the mess. Next to me there were two guys that embraced and had obviously not seen each other for a while. Since I had nothing else to do, I listened to their conversation. It was all about when they each had gotten out of prison. I guess that's what they had in common. They quickly caught up on all of their other cell mates and who had heard from who. It was like a mission reunion, just not a church mission since every other word was the f word. They must have learned the good grammar behind bars. Then they discussed how long their sentence had been and how they got out early. Then the whole parole thing and how this time they were determined to serve out the time, even if they still had 12 years left. I was quite relieved when one of them was called up and the conversation ended. A few minutes later, someone was hurrying on out and dropped one of their registration forms, the man on parole ran to grab it and chased them down outside to give it to them. I was relieved to see some redeeming qualities and helped me to take back my previous judgment. I saw the old lady shuffle back all the way across the floor rather than walking out the door at the other end where she had been served. She went all the way back to the front door attendant that hands out the numbers and thanked her so much for her service and then shuffled ever so slowly out the door. That was such a nice thing, that it completely lifted my spirits.

Finally, after 55 minutes, my number was called and I took care of my business in about 35 seconds.