Adventures in Bureaucracy

Pennsylvania law states that you have 60 days after moving here to obtain a Pennsylvania Driver's License. PA law also states that you have 20 days to obtain valid car tags and re-title your vehicle. Guess what you need in order to obtain your new car tags? You guessed it!!! Your new PA driver's license. Does anyone see a problem here?? As you probably know, I'm not very mathy, but that doesn't seem to add up... As a Pennsylvanian, I am ashamed of the nincompoops who are responsible for approving THAT law.

This week I finally got my Pennsylvania driver's license. Lemme tell you, people are sent to the electric chair with less proof.

Let me set this up for you...

So the lease on this apartment is in Dan's name only. That is largely owing to the simple fact that after one week of house-hunting with the people in tow (remember the house where the toilets in both bathrooms were occupied by my children???), I didn't give a friggin' flip where we lived, and finally put my foot down and said I would NOT look at another house, apartment, townhouse, domicile, single-family dwelling, place of habitation, cardboard box, or anything remotely similar. I was D-O-N-E. The last apartment we looked at it was IT. I-T it. We spent 10 days living in a hotel, and as long as this apartment had bedrooms with locking doors, I wanted it! Furthermore, I was NOT taking Buckner, Israel and Palestine inside to sign a lease. I would sooner have a root canal than to take the three stooges inside a business office to institute utter mayhem while I perused a legal contract (And I mean, that, too...I've had a root canal. It's not altogether unpleasant if you get the nitrous oxide...one of the best naps I've had in almost nine years come October 15 of this year). Therefore, I strongly suggested he go inside by his lonesome and sign a lease and I would stay in the Suburban and listen to Scooby-Doo for the 27th time that week. So it's just Dan on the lease.

I am sure you are familiar with the saying, "You don't know what you've got til it's gone." This is true in my case, as I am increasingly more convinced that Arkansas is doing it the correct way with so many issues beyond just parking lots and football (again...an issue for another blog...I can only digress so many times). Many a time I have loathed Arkansas' Revenue offices. However, I now regret that.

Pennsylvania's Department of Transportation (hereinafter "PennDOT" as referred to locally) has determined that the services provided by one revenue office should be divided into as many separate offices as possible, geographically separated as far away as possible. Furthermore, the event otherwise referred to as "obtaining your driver's license" is, here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, divided into two distinct operations. Naturally, these operations do not operate on the same days!

This past Monday, Dan and I set off to get our drivers' licenses. I had, of course, read the relevant Pennsylvania statutes, and gave Dan a written list of the things he would need to obtain his new PA driver's license (can we just shorten this for my convenience? PENNSYLVANIA is hard enough to spell, and just as inconvenient to type, so henceforth I will refer to PENNSYLVANIA as PA and "driver' s license" as DL, ok? I trust you will be able to keep up). According to the statutes I had read, read, and re-read, we needed our birth certificate OR passport, Arkansas DL, Social
Security card, and two items that proved residency such as lease agreement, utility bill, etc. I only had one bill in my name, and since I was not on the lease, Dan himself had to be one of my proofs of residency, which meant we had to go together.

The PA Photo DL Center closest to us was closed on Mondays, so we drove 15 miles or so down the highway to the next-closest one. We have Cole with us, and so we have brought the ipad, Jack's DS (no he didn't know we took it), a quart-size ziploc of crayons and a coloring book, and three different kinds of snack bars along with drinks for each of us. Dan had his iphone, too. It looked like we were moving in. Or preparing for hibernation. Either way, we were prepared for a long wait.

Just inside the door is a little machine that dispenses numbers. Ok, this looks familiar. And - a little glimmer of hope: only THREE people are waiting!! Maybe it won't be so bad after all!! We are loving the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania!!!

(This is what it looks like on Mondays!)


In about four or five minutes, Dan's number is called. He gathers up his papers, and after he stands up there a minute, he turns to me and says, "Let's go."

What??

"Let's go, they don't work today."

I'm sorry...what???

Employee sitting behind the desk says very loudly in my direction, "PennDOT doesn't work today. You'll have to come back tomorrow. [big toothy smirk]".

PennDOT doesn't work today?!? It's MONDAY. Let me check...it's not a holiday. The roads aren't iced over...and this office wasn't open Sunday, annnnndddd you appear to be an employee of "PennDOT" sitting behind your desk here at the PENNSYVLANIA DRIVERS LICENSE CENTER which is clearly open right now sooooo I am not following you...

By now Cole is immersed in a game on the ipad, and we have to negotiate him out of there, after I've gathered up our rations we've spread out on the seats next to us. Back to the apartment.

Next day: Round Two.

I still have my "stash" of snacks and entertainment accessories, so today is a little quicker getting ready. Bonus: we already know the way!

The parking lot is a little fuller this time. We get our numbers, and set up camp to wait our turn. About 10 minutes later, Dan's number is called. Once again, he stands there for a minute and then turns around to me, rather irritated, and tells me he can't get his license. Apparently he didn't bring his Social Security card (Nevermind I told him he HAD to have it...later he would tell me that he lost it sometime between yesterday's trip and today's trip, and that he 'thought he could just do without it.' Huh??? "The other proof should be enough!" Men.).

My number is immediately called next. I start pulling out all of my proof, and tell the employee that my husband is part of my proof, since I only have one piece of paper proving my residency. Apparently, I can't get my license because Dan would have to sign an affidavit stating I live with him, and he can't sign said affidavit because he doesn't have a Pennsylvania driver's license!!!!!!!!!!!! CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE!!!!!!!!! Who wrote this crap?!?!!

Soooo we leave. Cole is, understandably, getting irritated by now, as he repeatedly expresses to us. We go back to the apartment. After a feverish search, still no Social Security card. Of course, we have to go to the Social Security Administration office here in West Chester. This time Cole and I wait in the car. In 15 minutes or so, Dan comes out with a piece of paper that any fool could have typed up that says this is an "official notice Daniel Callaway has applied for a duplicate Social Security card, and that such-and-such Social Security number is issued to him."

Somehow I have my doubts that is going to work.

And back to the PA Driver's License Center we go...

We spread out the rations again, and get Cole set up with a game on the ipad.

Several days later, Dan's number is called. So is my number. Fate would of course dictate that he and I have to do the eye exam at the exact same second thus enabling Cole to run wild throughout the building gesturing with the very expensive ipad and screeching like a banshee on fire. You'll remember the eye exam is where you have to virtually insert your entire head into a 1970s time machine to read a few lines, which eliminates any and all peripheral vision. I mean, really. Could there not be a five-second gap between eye exams? I keep glancing five stations down at Dan to try to time my eye exam so he can at least be looking at Cole, but no such luck.
I give up and just do the eye exam. When I'm done, Cole is still doing sprints up and down the length of the room, but there does not appear to be any property damage or personal injury.

However, Dan is walking toward me grinning like the Cheshire cat!

"What's up with you?" I ask nervously.

"I can't get my driver's license. I can't pass the eye exam."

Speaking of eyes, I SAW RED!!!!

The fool lost his eyeglasses a couple of years ago, and apparently, well, I guess he's been feeling his way down the highways and bi-ways of life ever since.

Back to my eye exam. I passed. Of course. Because I had my contacts in. Miraculously, I had a receipt from a camera store where I had had prints made, and the clerk had mercy and allowed me to use that as one of my proofs of residency. Yes, it had my address on it...

And so I got my driver's license and we lived happily ever after!!

Hahahahahahahaha JOKE!!!

Of course I did not receive my driver's license! I had to go back to the little box at the front door and pull yet another ticket and sit in another section to wait to have my photo taken.

What seemed like days later, they called my name - again. I had my photo taken, and had to sit in another section to wait for what I thought would be my PA DL. Well, it was my PA DL I was handed some 15 minutes later, but IT WAS A TEMPORARY LICENSE!! I calmly and politely asked the PennDOT employee why it had the word "temporary" plastered in giant red letters across my license. Automatically without looking up she replied that they gave me a white card that explained all that.

??

Uh, no ma'm, I don't think so.

I am sure she hears this a zillion times a day, as she didn't look up or even really register that she heard exactly what I said, but just repeated the exact same thing - that I was given a white card that explained all that.

By now I truly didn't care if it had "Green-Eyed-Purple-People-Eater" stamped across it. I just turned around and left. And in all the time I had been in and out of there, I had not seen anyone resembling what might be a PennDOT employee standing by the front door, but today, just now, there she was. Fuming, I asked if she knew why my license said "temporary." Mercifully, she told me that the state would check my background and issue me a new one within 15 days, and that most of the PennDOT employees forget to give people the "white card that explains all that." Duh.

Two days later, I received my permanent PA DL. Meanwhile, Dan's still driving around southeast Pennsylvania half-blind...