The 7th gate of hell??

So since I turned 40 (I think I just threw up a little in my mouth, it is still very hard to say that I am 40. Damn there it is again) the lovely people at the DMV decided that it would be fun to coincide the expiration of my driver's licence with my birthday. Not only did it expire, but I was not being allowed to renew by mail. I had to go into their locations. These are horrible places where people can become stuck in the quagmire of bureaucracy.

But the worse part of this.... I forgot about it.... Completely! Did not even realize that for the past week, I have been driving on an expired driver's licence. So when a friend who just moved into my area called me for directions, it sparked a little hint of panic. I said a few choice expletives and asked her if she wanted company! She came to my house, dropped her kids off with mine and we left to go to the 7th gate of hell... The local DMV.

The closest office to my house is a block away from the beach in San Clemente. We drove there expecting a lengthy wait. We each had a book to read and she had her computer in case we needed to log in and do something for work.


As we walked in through glass double doors in the large space at the local strip mall, there was no line.. Waiting at the end of the fake leather encased ropes where their should have been hundreds of people queuing was a friendly face. She laughed and even cracked a joke! She handed me the paper I needed to fill out and we were each given a number. We sat down to fill out our respective papers and after 5 minutes our numbers were called. YES you read that correctly FIVE minutes. I barely had time to finish filling out the entire form! We walked to counters that were right next to one another and both of the women at this location were also nice... Not overly perky, but pleasant.... They looked over the forms, asked us to read the abc's that were way far away, asked for money, gave us receipts and sent us to the next window to get our pictures taken. We practically ran over to the next counter to see what wonders waited there. There was a mirror and a red carpet and a very nice, laughing employee. She was happy, she took our pictures, told us the photos looked good, said have a nice day!!

What was this place?? Did we enter an alternate reality? Every time I have been to the DMV I had to wait so long it was like that the scene in Beetlejuice...

But instead it was like a scene out of Pushing Daisies...There was singing, dancing, bright colors and pie...

Well, without the pie... And singing... And dancing for that matter, but there were bright colors.