Miguel meets the new state bureaucracy, Part I

(Miguel moved from Florida to another state. Here is his adventure.)

From Gun Free Zone

I need to get a new drivers license.

I go online to set up an appointment.

Six weeks.

Go in, the DMV requires a mask.  I don’t have one.

Usually they have extras but they are out.

They check my paperwork to make sure I have what I need then send me away to get a mask.

I get one.

Come back.

They sign me in.

Wait five minutes.

They process my paperwork and make me take off my mask for the picture.

None of this makes a God dammed bit of sense.  But obtuse bureaucrats have to enforce obtuse, useless, and inconvenient rules because that justifies their existence.

I hate the bureaucratic state.

Part II

North Carolina lets you register to vote at the DMV.

I had to tell them my party affiliation.

Unfortunately I could not register as a Pinochetist.

Also, if you try and register two pickup trucks, and the guy asks “Why do you have two pickup trucks?”

The correct answer is not “one for each testicle”

(Here is my DMV story, eight years ago in Arkansas.

I had done everything with paperwork and now had one last thing to do before getting my new license in hand. The DMV lady said, “Do you want to register to vote?”

I said, “I am already registered.”

She pushed a piece of paper at me and said, “Sign this saying you declined to register.”

I said, “I do not decline. I am already registered.”

She holds my new DL. “If you don’t register here, you have to sign this paper saying you decline to register to vote.”

I figure I’ll try at least one more time. “I am not declining to register. I am registered.”

She said, “The legislature says that if you do not register to vote here, you must sign this paper saying you decline to register.”

So I signed and got my new DL. And left the DMV office much, much more pissed off than when I went in.)