George Washington once said we can judge a nation by how it treats its veterans. If I could borrow from the namesake of the city in which I live, then I think it could be said that we can judge a state (or “District”) by how it treats its drivers.
The District of Columbia is well-known for its corrupt, bloated, wasteful, lazy, felonious bureaucracy. Crime sucks, services suck, it all just sucks, sucks, sucks … yet many of us choose to live here despite that.
The DMV is just a microcosm of that suckiness, but an important one, because so many citizens are forced to interact closely — usually a bit more closely than we’d like — with them on a fairly regular basis.
I know that just about every DMV everywhere probably takes a lot of flak for ineptitude; it’s almost a prerequisite for the office. But let’s see if your own Department of Motor Vehicles can one-up the tragicomic farce here in Washington’s fair city:
In the District of Columbia, to drive a car, you need to get a DC driver’s license and to register your car within 30 days of moving here. Fair enough.
I recently moved to DC, but I had valid Virginia license plates and a valid DC driver’s license, so I slipped a month or so behind in starting to get this done. (This was compounded both by the general dread at the thought of having to go through this trauma, while also dealing with condo-buying and other major life events.)
In June, I decided I had better dive in. My Virginia plates were about to expire at the end of August. My DC driver’s license (which I had from before I moved to New York, then back to Virginia, before moving into the new DC condo) wasn’t set to expire until December, but it listed my old address. So I faced two main tasks: Update my driver’s license address and register my car.
First, the license. I checked out the requirements for moving within the District, as it seemed a simple change of address from one DC location to another. Just to be safe, I also looked into the requirements for a driver’s license when moving into the District from elsewhere. I gathered up my existing DC license, my Social Security card (which I have had since the third grade!), proof of residency in the form of both a cable bill and my condo-owner’s insurance policy, and I rummaged through some boxes to find my birth certificate, just to be doubly safe. It’s a good thing I did too, because they ultimately treated me as an out-of-stater.
But here’s where the silliness starts: Even if I had begun the process the day I moved into the District, what realistic chance did I (or anyone in that position) have to collect all of that documentation within 30 days? Is there an automatic assumption that I would have been able to get my first utility bill or proof of homeowner’s insurance within that time period? Probably not.
Before we set all of that aside — because the driver’s license part of the story is the least harrowing — the man at the DMV did me a favor by letting me change my address, although I couldn’t renew the license because you have to be within two months of its expiration date to do so.
Here’s the deal: Apparently that DUI I got 13 years ago (still the biggest mistake I’ve ever made but haven’t repeated) resulted in suspension of my Montana license. Nobody told me about it at the time or notified me that I needed to do anything about that. And clearly I have legally received and renewed driver’s licenses several times since. But now, 13 years later, it would have prevented me from getting a DC license (even though I have one in my wallet right now — get it?). SO … I had to send a $100 reinstatement fee to Montana to take the hold off my DC renewal privileges. Ostensibly when I renew in December, this will no longer be an issue. Ostensibly.
But again, that wasn’t the hard part. The hard part is the registration of a vehicle.
Having been through this before, I was smart enough to know that I needed a safety/emissions inspection before I tried to do anything else. I was especially canny to know that you can now make inspection appointments online. So one morning before work, I casually drove for my inspection to the front of a line, past a column of cars stretching around the corner and snaking down the street. (The District of Columbia has one inspection location. That’s not a typo: One.) What would have taken me about 90 minutes without an appointment took me only about 10 minutes.
Bing, bang, boom! I’m really moving, I thought.
After gathering the aforementioned documents for my driver’s license, I checked the requirements for getting a registration and heaved a heavy sigh when I saw that the list was just as long if not longer.
I needed my license: Check. Proof of odometer reading: It took me a while to find out that the inspection report itself listed this. Vehicle insurance, vehicle inspection. Check, check.
Then there was this matter of the title. I must confess, I’ve never really understood what a “title” is. I think it has something to do with certification of who the actual owner of the vehicle is. But the Web site doesn’t exactly make it clear what it is, how to get it, who should have it, or why.
So I decided I should make my appearance at the DMV in hopes that they might already have the title, or that it would be something easily rectified. Because I had already spent a lot of time telecommuting during the week while I babysat sticky-fingered subcontractors at home, I chose to go on a Saturday. Big mistake.
With a half-inch-thick envelope full of documents in hand, I headed to Georgetown. I took a number and waited for it to be called. I sat (thank God they have chairs) and listened to my iPod. Three hours later I was finally called to the counter.
We started with the license. He perused my documents: Check! After staring at a computer screen for a couple of minutes, this is when he told me about the issue in Montana. As I said, he was nice enough to issue a replacement card with the correct address, but no renewal.
Then we started in on the registration process. Check, check, check. Then he asks me about the title. I said I don’t have it. He asked me if I had a car loan. I said yes. He said the lien-holder would probably have the title, and I would need to have them send it to the DMV. He gave me a form whereby I could make the formal request of Toyota, including the address where they were to mail the original title. I didn’t know what was supposed to happen after that point, but the man circled the DMV’s phone number on the form and told me to call first to ensure the title had arrived before coming back again.
This is where I should point out that there is no way to call and speak to a human being at the DC DMV. Try it. I dare you! (For shits and giggles: 202-727-5000.)
I’ve been getting a little nervous because the end of August and the end of driving on legal tags are both looming. Today I called that number. After four attempts, I would up down four different pre-recorded message ratholes before realizing that there either is no option to speak to a person, or it was so well-disguised that I would be spending the rest of my day searching.
My next step was to call Toyota and see what they knew. According to them, my title was sent as requested on July 8. According to the DMV Web site, “Titles are mailed to the primary owner within 15 business days. In case of lien holder, the title will be mailed to the primary lien holder.” So I’m guessing this means DC takes the title from whatever jurisdiction it was issued — New York or New Jersey or Virginia or Neptune — and then sends a prettier, spiffier DC TITLE to the owner or lien-holder. As I have received nothing, I asked Toyota if they had. Nope, nothing — 21 business days after Toyota sent it.
So do I wait as the clock ticks down on August and check in with Toyota every once in a while, as they’re the only ones who answer their phones? Do I chance wasting another three hours of my life in line at the DMV and risk being told there is still no DC title and that maybe I should go away and leave them alone so they can drink Diet Pepsi and file their sparkly nails?
Or do I post on my blog about what idiotic douchebaggery this whole process is? At least I hold control of that in my own hands.
Between the proof-of-residency requirements, the inspection process, the onerous document collection (imagine if I needed to have sent away for a copy of my birth certificate!), the titling process, and the waiting in long lines only to be Heisman’d, how is it possible that anyone can complete anything within 30 days of moving to the District?
I’m no conspiracy nut, but I think it’s part of a grand design: If they can stall long enough, and my Virginia tags expire, my choice will be either not to drive, or to risk getting dinged with some really hefty fines — i.e., more income for their lazy, felonious asses.
They have already tried it twice: They issued me tickets two separate times when they saw the expired Virginia inspection sticker in my window, not bothering to look three feet to the right to see that there was also a valid District inspection sticker! I took photos and contested both tickets. But why should I have to put up with all of this?
Christopher, by the way, is going through the same thing — only, his tags have already expired, and he’s driving on borrowed time.
He thought his Virginia license would suffice in place of his birth certificate. As he recounts it, the DMV worker literally seemed to take perverse pleasure in dismissing him from her gaze after he had also waited three hours in line, just to be toyed with like a mouse. He’s a strong man, but he said he was close to tears out of frustration.
Our tax dollars at work, folks. But that’s the kind of brackish bureaucratic cesspool I have come to expect from a one-party town like DC.
Well, I had been set to spend Monday morning running commentary about this weekend’s Lollapalooza in Grant Park. There are, after all, so many different topics to cover and questions to answer. Who wore the douchiest sunglasses? Why did the crowd consist only of suburban, upper-middle class white kids who were in grade school when most of these bands were popular? Is finding a minority in the crowd in true Waldo fashion nearly as fun as advertised? (No, seriously, try it).
I was even going to discuss the most awesome couple ever: Two gay men, shirtless, dressed and built like they just wandered out of International Mr. Leather, pushing a stroller. I’m not kidding, I applauded after they passed on the street. It was fantastic.
We’ll even set aside the odd hipster in a kaffiyeh. Yes, I could have wound them around the necks supporting their empty little hipster heads, but I had frozen spaghetti sauce from mom in a bag and needed to zip up north out of the afternoon sun.
But all of that is nothing compared to the major issue of the weekend.
Guys . . . guys . . . . guuuuys . . .
No. Capri. Pants. Ever.
No. Bad hipster suburbanite. Bad.
I thought we taught you better.
No. Capri. Pants. Ever.
And with flip-flops? No. Just . . . who the hell said this was ok?!
Stop it.
Some subtle-as-a-brick Web editor at NBC’s Summer Olympics Web site has put up a feature about the secret hand signals beach volleyball players flash to their teammates.
But that certainly wasn’t what I thought the story was about when I saw this on the site’s front page:
For the three lesbians and two straight guys who visit The Malcontent, I’m sure you’ll enjoy that story in all of its double entendre cheekiness.
Remember, folks: Crack is whack.
1:55 Getting our prelaunch spiel
1:59 Capt. Franklin is a real cut-up
2:01 Away we go
2:05 Passing CSPAN. Ooo.
2:07 saw people standing on double decker bus. They must not have heard of the 2 people who were recently decapitated doing that.
2:17 Christopher pointed out correctly that Capt Franklin looks like Larry David.
2:19 Just passed the site of the first ever Boy Scout Jamboree. It should come as no surprise that this 13-year Washingtonian is actually learning things.
2:23 did you know a river essentially runs beneath Constitution Avenue?
2:25 look, kids. Big Ben. Parliament. Wait, I mean the Lincoln Memorial.
2:27 Six degrees of Kevin Bacon. His grandfather designed something we just passed. Missed what it was.
2:30 That probably marks the 100th time I heard how Arlington Nat’l Cemetery began.
2:31 We are about to enter the Potomac.
2:33 Construction began on the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 1941.
2:40 At DCA. Going in the water. Hope this thing floats!
2:46 C’s nephew and niece are driving.
2:51 Capt Franklin talks in the third person like “Suede” on “Project Runway.” (Christopher gave me that line.)
2:54 He just handed out “quackers.” It sounds like New Year’s Eve.
2:56 We are hearing that delightful story about the plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge.
2:58 A view of Arlington
3:01 The kids are adorable. But the quacking. Oh, the quacking.
3:02 Another pic.
3:04 The tide is low but we’re holding on …
3:07 All ashore that’s going ashore!
3:12 Crossing the aforementioned bridge.
3:18 Eastbound on Independence.
3:29 Bad pictures of famous buildings.
3:36 This completes your tour of DC. Please send $5 in care of this blog.
Because when they write stories about the economy, they focus on negative data in order to gin up headlines like “Jobless Rate Hits a High, Dims Hope for a Recovery” and ignore other recent data such as a roughly 2 percent rise in GDP in the second quarter of 2008.
Not only are we not, nor have we been in a recession in years (betcha didn’t know that if you only read the big dailies), but that growth rate is the strongest it has been in several quarters–i.e., the trend is upward. Reporters also don’t understand that unemployment rates tend to go up as economic recoveries begin. Either that, or they don’t remember or simply don’t care about that inconvenient truth.
I’m not saying things are all peaches and cream, folks, but there is something to the old nostrum that you can “talk down the economy.” And not that Phil Gramm is any font of great wisdom, but let’s at least entertain the possibility that while individuals are indeed hurting, as individuals always do, the idea of recession in broader terms is at least partially “mental.”
It amazes me that the MSM is scratching its head about why their entire industry is collapsing into a black hole. We don’t trust you anymore!
Seen in a sidebar:
Rule 1: Get yourself a really good knife. Rules 2-10: See rule 1.
Given the sheer volume of these things blowing around various diners, newsstands, and coffeehouses, I suspect, come the Apocalypse, the last vestiges of humanity will be eking out a grim existence in mud huts crafted entirely of thatch and old copies of the Chicago Reader.
Still, if there weren’t three hundred forty-seven stacks of the thing in every dive in the city, I’d never have the opportunity to half drunkenly read about the latest gay controversies in between three in the morning bites of stale mozzarella stick.
Gay activists are very upset that James Dobson of creepy remarks about a father’s penis fame will be inducted into the local Radio Hall of Fame.
And by very upset, I mean they seem vaguely peeved and are planning to do, you know, whatever about it. No one is terribly clear about just what they’re going to do to protest a hall of fame with all the moral authority of an Imus induction and Stern nomination - this is not an institution that particularly cares what people are saying on the radio.
Still, if there is a protest, I’ll go with a camera or some such and celebrate the total malaise that seems voiced by the gay organizations who are very (somewhat) outraged.
Also, the article linked above is fun. Of the three men pictured, can you pick out the gay activist?
(I tease. I like Wayne, actually).
Perhaps some people will remember. A few years ago, a vaguely unpopular assistant district attorney on Law and Order was written off the show. In the character’s final scene, she was informed of her termination. She looked towards her boss, the audience crunched a cheetoh, and then came the immortal line, “Is it because I’m a lesbian?”
It was at this point the audience glanced over the backs of their couches to discover if some heretofore unknown Wounded Lesbians Screenwriting Guild was camped out in their living rooms flinging random script ideas at the screen. The character’s sexuality had never been referenced before, and suddenly it was a potential reason for her firing? It was a purely whiskey tango foxtrot moment in the annals of potentially aggrieved minorities on television.
I can’t help but remember that incident in this week’s “Is it because Obama is black?!” reactions to the fogey-crafted celebrity ad by the McCain people. Yes, Obama oftentimes seems like a frivolous celebrity residing over more of a personality cult than a political campaign. Many people seem to know little to nothing of his policies or his positions. He’s famous, he’s charismatic, and really, isn’t that enough for anyone in this country?
Which is why this attempt at race-baiting is so very, very clumsy:
The problem: Anyone with even a vague sense of pop culture knows that Britney and Paris are yesterday’s news. Here’s a link to Forbes’ Celebrity 100. Paris and Britney don’t even make the list any more.
Instead, the top 10, in order: Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Angelina Jolie, Beyonce Knowles, David Beckham, Johnny Depp, Jay-Z, The Police, JK Rowling, Brad Pitt.
So, they didn’t pick other big celebrities, who were either men, or black, or married.
What they picked was two sexually available white women.
Anyone who wanted to make an issue of pointless celebrity could do quite a bit worse than Britney Spears and Paris Hilton . . . two years ago. But given how candidates and political campaigns are often several decades behind the popular culture (like Europe on steroids), the McCain people could perhaps be considered contemporary, if not revolutionary, in their ability to reference something from within the twenty-first century.
And yet, here comes the Left. “Obama is black! McCain wants you to notice! And feel threatened!” I generally have a good nose for bullshit (from sniffing tubers), and even I didn’t quite see this angle coming. It seems like the only people who have been discussing throughout the campaign just how blackety-black-blackered the current candidate is . . . are his supporters.
Is it me, or are they almost cheering for a race war here and trying to create one where - so far - none exists?
I supported Obama early in the primary campaigns - generally out of a lack of options. Gradually, I’ve become less enamored with the cult of personality. Mix in some Chicago style race-baiting, and suddenly I’m starting to peer around the Libertarian edges of the field for some write-in possibilities.
Keep it up, moonbats. A few more months of exploring everyone’s secret racist motivations, and you’ll leave even me voting for McCain. And that is a possibility I never thought I’d countenance. At least, not outside three vicodin and a mojito.
Speaking as someone whose life and career on Capitol Hill have been forever changed and inconvenienced for the past seven years by the anthrax attacker, if this is the guy who did it, then I hope he’s currently rotting in hell.
I’m curious what readers think Satan might be doing to him right now.
If karma is key, then it would involve a constant undercurrent of dread followed by sudden panic when someone spills a packet of Equal and doesn’t clean it up, getting his balls stomped on by guys in hazmat suits, being randomly evacuated from wherever he is in hell to a worse part of hell, getting his mail weeks late with pages stuck together or CDs and DVDs warped into uselessness by radiation, and taking daily shots of Cipro laced with battery acid directly into his rectum.
It’s official: I’ve sloughed off suburbia in favor of the urban experience. And by urban experience, I mean more hipsters than you can shake a crate of aviators at and several hundred thousand Eastern Europeans who seem to have materialized directly from Albania.
And, of course, gays everywhere. I had to give up playing my “Gay, Not Gay?” game while walking the streets because the gays where starting to win. No fair.
Either way, pics? Pics. Of the views of the new lakefront place just before a thunderstorm. Below the cut.