12 Stolen Big Macs
I was listening to a Hot Talk Radio jock on the way to renew my driver’s license. I like to keep tabs on the pulse of America, see what ‘the people’ are thinking these partisan days. My commentator was apoplectic the President had recently received a 48% approval rating, proof, he said, 48% of ‘the people’ were stupid, deluded or totally brainwashed. It might look like the economy was recovering, but he knew it wasn’t and we should know too. By the time I rolled into the Dep’t of Licensing office, it was painfully obvious that the country was going down the toilet. I wondered if getting a license good for 6 more years was really worth it, but … I’d driven all this way.
A few folks were camped by the front door waiting for the place to open. A Chinese woman was studying — in Chinese, no less — a manual on road signs, rules of the road, all that stuff I’ve forgotten since my test at 16. She was maybe 65. A grandma and I struck up a conversation while we waited. She’d lost her license and needed a replacement. She was worried they’d put her through hell to get one. I said naw, probably take new photo, no big deal. She wasn’t buying that. This was a government office and government, like my DJ said, was evil. Corrupt. Out of control. Good chance she’d be taken into a backroom, never to be seen behind the wheel of a car again. Happens all the time, you just never hear about it. Blame the media.
We walked in together, lambs to the slaughter. Took me 2 minutes at the desk, took her 2 and a half, so we met at the camera for our mugshots. “Pretty painless,” I observed.
“Except for the money,” she replied.
“How much for a lost license?” I asked and she said $54, same as mine. Turns out she renewed hers too, 6 years. “Not bad, $9 a year. About 2 Big Macs.”
“That’s a dinner I won’t get to eat every year for the next 6 years,” she groaned.
It’s a cynical time, I guess, when you complain about what’s efficient, what works, what’s cheap. I walked out whistling, too dumb to know I didn’t have it this good. I decided to listen to music on the way home.
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