Why do DMVs have to always be absolutely the most depressing, sepulchral institutional buildings known to humankind? Doesn't everyone have to get a driver's license, even fancy rich people? Yet all I see when I go there, generally speaking, are the most down-and-out, unwashed people all corraled together as though selected for some sort of government population-culling program. This was certainly true of the San Francisco DMV between Fell and Divisadero which I visited a few weeks ago in an attempt to get the state ID I lost after being mugged a while back - only to be bluntly turned away after waiting in line (and having some crackhead cut in line in front of me) for a good bit of time, because I didn't have a certified copy of my birth certificate. Don't get me started on why I didn't have my birth certificate...it's such a ridiculous and infuriating catch-22.
Anyway, I found a loophole out of the catch-22 and did recently - at long last - receive a copy of my birth certificate. On Friday I walked a good way and then took two buses to the DMV in Oakland on Claremont, only to find the doors barred in my face - it's inexplicably closed the first, second, and third Friday of every month! Yes, I know I should've called before I went in, but I had only recently looked up their hours on the web, and I swear it said they were open 8am-5pm Monday through Friday! (In other words, normal DMV hours.) Maybe this is some new 2010 bullshit due to budget cuts that just started this month? I was pissed, but hope wasn't lost: on the bus ride in I'd noticed a pho house on Telegraph Ave just blocks from the DMV. It had seemingly materialized in response to my desire, because I'd been craving pho on the way in, but the disciplined part of my mind was going to make me wait until I'd completed my grim errand to the always-depressing DMV before I rewarded myself with a big delicious bowl of Vietnamese beef noodle soup trimmed with lime, fresh basil, cilantro, bean sprouts, jalapeno peppers, sweet plum and red hot chili pepper sauce. (There are certain foods I get cravings for sometimes that are almost overpowering: sometimes I want a good burger, sometimes I crave Mexican food with beans and rice, sometimes I would give anything for a nice slice of cheesecake, other times I would gnaw off a limb for a good bowl of pho.)
I ordered a large and the waitress brought out a bathtub full of pho, with even a little side-dish of kim chi, something I've never had before with pho. I spent a delicious hour slowly absorbing every flavor, in every combination, that the pho had to offer. So that alone made the trip worthwhile.
Then I walked to the MacArthur BART station, a matter of blocks away. I got on and noticed the train wasn't moving. Eventually the conductor came on the PA system and announced, "Folks, we've just had word of a 3.8-magnitude earthquake near Milpitas. Hopefully we'll be moving shortly."
I hadn't felt anything. And in a little bit the train did start moving. But I can already say I've been through my first Bay-Area earthquake.
The issue isn't whether everyone, even the rich, has to get licenses etc. The issue is that everyone has to get them from the DMV. If there was any sort of competition, they'd actually have to try a little harder. Even the USPS has competition of sorts (FedEx, UPS, Mailbox Store-type places).
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