Government Efficiency

So our family got to visit the epitome of government efficiency this past weekend: the DMV.

Before going to the wonderful DMV, we drove by a new location of Chipolte, a great burrito place, that was new to our area. We have been craving it a ton since leaving Colorado. At least after being frustrated by the morons at the DMV, we’ll at least be able to eat here after our long wait we told ourselves.

Before leaving I checked the web site on what documentation we would need to get our new state residence license. It said in the first sentence of “Proof of Residence” that the definition of this is a government issued, non-expired ID with your full name printed on it. Check, Colorado license covers that. Primary identification is also covered by the CO license, bonus! Secondary identification is the marriage license, great, wife and I both only need to take our CO license and marriage license.

We get to this wonderful establishment after confirming location of said Chipolte and proceed to the “Information lady.” She informs us that we need a passport, birth certificate or something else. At this point of the conversation I blocked out what she was saying because I had too much steam coming out my ears. I wish I would have told her that I don’t even need this kind of identification to be President of the United States! Instead I went with the “I needed more of a background check to get my government ID (as I showed her it) than she did to get this government issued ID.” To which she just started saying “I don’t have to take this from you!” The security guy tried to get me to leave at this point.

Having been taken too many times and having driven 25 minutes to this crap hole with 2 kids under the age of 4, we asked to speak to the manager as I still thought we had the proper identification just to get a new stupid license. The manager did a good job explaining to us that buried in the verbiage of “Proof of Residence” was the fact that to get a new state ID, we couldn’t just use CO driver’s license.
So we left and my blood pressure was still quite elevated. As we drove back towards Chipolte, I talk about what I should have said. The fact that I want to get “DMVSX” on my new license plate and how it’s funny that the one government building that needs security is the DMV, because it’s not uncommon for people to get so jacked up there. I wish I could invent a time machine to go back in time and tell people a much better line than what I did tell them. Then again, rather than doing that altogether, I suppose I could have just gone back in time and taken the correct identification. But I digress…

So pulling up to Chipolte we see the words come into focus on the windows, “GRAND OPENING, JULY 31st!!” The main problem here was that the date this took place was July 24th! If I were by myself in the car at this point I think I would have driven the car straight through the doors. So our Friday afternoon, in which I took the day off “sick”, was a huge waste. The kids were hungry, the wife was hungry and I did not want to hear the words “calm down.”

I learned my lesson and we went back the next day with kids running around screaming and got our paper licenses, although for the pictures we weren’t allowed to smile? Is that what this country has come to? I don’t care if I have to pay $1000/month in health care to keep it privatized, if the government runs my health care I think we can all expect it to be similar to the DMV, crappy.