Went to the South Carolina DMV this afternoon to get a new driver’s license and plates for the BMW.
Left without the driver’s license.
Left without the plates.
Turns out, I was missing one of the 323 items I needed to prove my identity.
The state wanted the following:
A valid out-of-state driver’s license
- An up-to-date passport
- A birth certificate
- Your first born child
- A cat named Pepper
- An elephant tusk
- The molar from a Great White shark
- Three robin’s eggs
- A 10-speed Schwinn
- 14 gold bricks
- The Crown Jewels
- The last 10 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues
- A self-published novel (hey, I got one of those)
- 2 dozen chicken feathers
- A lock of hair from Kim Kardashian
- Four pounds of toenail clippings
- One pound of bellybutton fuzz
- A … we’ll be here all day.
And I was. Four hours after arriving, a disembodied voice announced “Now serving D 4,000 at counter three.” I staggered up from my chair and shuffled to counter three where a woman with a beehive hairdo that went out of style in 1952 put out her hand and said with a smoker’s rasp, “License.”
She took it, looked at my photo.
“This doesn’t look like you,” she said. “You used to be fat. Don’t get me wrong, you’re still fat, only not as fat as when you were really fat. Come back when you look like the fat guy on the license.”
I rushed out and downed a couple hundred chocolate covered Twinkies. I came back. Waited another four hours. Got up to the same counter, same clerk.
“This doesn’t look like you,” she said. “You used to be skinnier.”
I broke down, falling to the floor and curling into a fetal position.
“Gimme your required items,” the clerk said, as I sobbed uncontrollably.
“My cat’s name is Benny, not Pepper,” I said, holding up my spitting tabby, who was none too happy being on a leash. “That’s OK, isn’t it?”
“Gotta have a cat named Pepper,” she said.
“But it’s a cat,” I implored. “I don’t even like cats.”
She pressed a button under her desk and the disembodied voice said, “Now serving D 4,562 at counter three,” and a disheveled man lurched up and, wiping chocolate from his face, elbowed me aside.
Fine, I thought. I’ll just go get the plates.
“You can’t get plates here,” said another clerk. “You have to go to the treasurer’s office first, and pay property taxes on the vehicle.”
“Where’s the treasurer’s office?” I asked.
“‘Bout 100 miles north,” she said.
“Property taxes?”
“You’re car’s property, isn’t it?”
“Well, it’s my property, but I don’t live in it? I have a house for that.”
“That’s great. You can pay your property taxes on your house while you’re there.”
Signing, I asked, “Then what?”
“Then you come back here.”
“For what?”
“To get your license. Can’t get plates without a license. Just remember to bring all 323 items to prove your identity.”
E.E. Williams, Author 