Fun with TXDPS

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Fun with TXDPS

Every now and then you just have to get out of your cocoon and get into the real world of people and bullshit.

Ever since the wife and I moved "inside the Loop" (610), we've tried hard to utilize businesses that are also inside the Loop. Part of the motivation is that driving on Houston freeways is near-suicide. About the only times you can drive unobstructed is between the hours of 3am and 5am. By 3am all the drunks have either gotten home or are lying in smoldering heaps of metal along the side of the road. Rarely do they crash right in the middle of the highway.

Anyway, it was finally time for me to have to take a new picture for my Texas drivers license. I'd been able to renew by mail and internet for many years. Maybe 10. The picture of me on my license was beginning to bare practically no resemblance to the current me at all, and as of my birthday here in June of 2007, I was due to renew again, but I was no longer allowed to renew by mail.

So, this means I have to actually go to a Drivers License office of the Texas Department of Public Safety. There are NO TXDPS offices inside the Loop. Although everyone warned me away from it, and my own sour experiences there years ago should have kept me away, I headed to the Dacoma TXDPS office.

They opened at 8am, so I figured that getting there around 9:30am might be a good time to beat some of the crowd. Ha! Sure enough, not a parking space available anywhere. There are only about 50 spaces for cars at this location, which is stupid already, and they were all taken.

After circling (with several other cars) for several minutes, someone finally pulled out of a space, and I zipped in, just ahead of one of my fellow vultures. It was already hot as the blazes of Hell outside.

Open the front door of the office, and, aw, shit, the serpentine line was already backed up right to the front door.

There are no signs to direct you where to go. Only one sign: INFORMATION.

Everyone has to go thru this line to find out which line you need to wait in. Although my feet were already thinking about how much they were going to be hurting by standing in line for God-knows-how-long, I stepped to the rear of the line.

Fortunately, I walked in right after a nice guy and we struck up a conversation to help the time go. He manages the Monterrey Tex-Mex restaurant just down the highway. The wife and I used to eat there now and then when we lived in suburbia. "Elvis" (Warren) was still working there. He offers me a free meal next trip. That's nice.

While waiting in line, I notice they have one of those number counters on the wall..."NOW SERVING NUMBER 23" the sign reads. I notice that, after snaking thru this line - we were moving about two people per minute - that number had not changed once. I figured it was out of order or something. After several minutes I made out the desk ahead, where two DPS workers were giving people in my line the "Information."

When I was about 15 people away from being "next," after already waiting in line about 20 minutes, one of the two workers simply walks away, around the corner and doesn't come back. Great. Now we have only one person "helping" all these people in line. As I get closer, one of the people just milling around in a waiting area close to us (he'd already been thru this "Information"line) leans over to the one guy left at the desk and says, "Hey, that number on the wall has been on '23' for 45 minutes now."

Oh, shit.

All these people have a number in their hands. There must be 75 people waiting, AFTER they've been in this line. And I see only about 25 chairs there, for about 75 people. That means everyone else has to stand. My feet...So, I'm only two people away now from the sacred "Information," and a voice over the loudspeaker says, "Number 24. Number 25."

Ok, let's see now. That guy over there said the counter was on #23 for 45 minutes, and then they called two numbers. This doesn't look good. I finally get up to Mr. Information, tell him what I need, he gives me a form, tells me to wait "over there," pointing to all those poor suckers with angry looks on their faces, and gives me my number.

Number 78. NUMBER 78?!?!

And it took 45 minutes to move off of #23? Lessee now, how long will I be waiting? My number is 78. They just called "25." You do the math. I figured it would be at least three or four hours, at that pace, if the citizens didn't riot first.

That would mean that I would miss lunch waiting there. Shit, I might miss dinner too.

My feet took one look at number 78 and we bolted out the door, heading for the car and home. No fucking way I'm going to wait until 4pm or later to get my picture snapped. I went home and, already getting hungry, made some lunch. Lay down in the cool air from the air conditioner and relax......