the DMV failure

Today was supposed to be devoted to going to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) office in Front Royal to renew my driver's license and, if possible, to acquire a REAL ID (a star and a hologram on the license allowing you to fly domestically; otherwise, you will soon need to fly domestically with your passport). I had chosen the Front Royal DMV office because it's small and relatively quiet, and I was sure I'd be guaranteed quick service. All of that turned out to be true this morning (Wednesday the 26th). What I hadn't counted on was the lady at Window 1, the petty tyrant, queen of her dunghill. She seemed, at first, to be a stickler about the second proof of residence that I had provided (you need two pieces of evidence of residency for both the license and the REAL ID), dismissing my USPS printout and the DMV printout. She grudgingly said the BochaSweet receipt that I had provided was acceptable, but the main problem she had was with the lease agreement that my buddy Mike had drawn up. Now according to Mike, his property company does this sort of thing all the time; the agreement is always vetted by lawyers—has been for years—and no one's ever had any problem with it.

Until this lady who, as a petty bureaucrat, decided she knew more than lawyers did about the legality of the document. The lady scanned the lease agreement and shook her head about two items in particular: the text at the very beginning of the agreement, which she interpreted to mean that I was still residing at 9 Shenandoah Commons Way (my old apartment in Front Royal from 2010 to 2013)—this despite my having clearly said that that was my former residence, and despite that fact that the address of the current residence—Mike's house—was also listed on the front page twice. Fixated on that first paragraph, the lady stubbornly refused to recognize that page's legitimacy. "Who wrote this up for you?" she complained, again arrogating to herself the right to comment as if she knew the legal aspects of such a document. Her second complaint was with page 4 of the document, where certain items had been crossed out in the spirit of this particular agreement. "We need all of that text to be in there," the lady declared, offering no legal explanation for why this was so.

Upshot: I didn't get either my license renewal or my REAL ID—sort of a worst-case scenario since that's why I'm in America at all. I told the lady I'd be back tomorrow (Thursday the 27th) with an amended agreement, and we'd try again. I eventually drove down to Mike's place of work* after I'd done a Walmart errand (more salads, some cheese, and a pulse-ox and blood-sugar monitor because my Korean one was missing its test strips). Mike gamely amended the lease agreement to meet the lady's complaints, all the while saying that the template he'd followed had never had any trouble from anyone before. I believe and trust my friend, and I can't help thinking this lady, uneducated in the law and not providing any real reasons for her objections except for a dodgy interpretation after she'd ignored crucial parts of the document, was just looking for a chance to prove her authority over my life. I wasn't one of the simpler, uneducated folk standing in the DMV office (surprisingly full at 8:25 in the morning); maybe I was a threat to her sense of security. Who knows?

Anyway, I'm going back with the amended lease agreement and my other document Thursday morning, and we'll see how Round 2 goes. Maybe she'll find something else wrong.

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*After only my second day with a rented car, I'm already down to half a tank of gas, but I'm really learning the Manassas-Front Royal-Fredericksburg routes very well. Per gallon (3.8 liters), gas is around the $3 mark in Virginia; in Front Royal, it's around $2.80. Closer to DC, it's a few cents over $3. Google AI suggests that gas prices have overall gone down since last year, from a rough national average of $3.60 a gallon to $3.12. In Front Royal, where gas has traditionally been cheaper than average, I saw prices hovering around $2.80, which gives me hope that we won't plunge back into 2008-era costs (over $4).