Valentine's Day at the DMV

I wrote this in the back cover of Singing School by Robert Pinsky while I was waiting at the DMV.

I took the day off of work to come here. I'm sitting in a plastic chair in a row of many other rows with other people who are dressed against the cold. There are red streamers hanging from the ceiling because it's Valentine's Day and I think the government workers love us. I brought this book with me. It's kind of an anthology called Singing School, and I'm finding that only some poems are working with the rhythm of this place.

William Blake's "A Question Answered" - no. Nothing by Emily Dickinson either, or any other poem that sounds like something you might hum to a baby.

But "Howl" is working. It fits somehow with the electronic calling of alphanumeric names and the monotone questions.

"Now serving E414 at counter number 5."

Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch!

"Now serving A016 at counter number 18."

Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo!

"Sir, do you wear glasses?"

Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows!

I look up at the electronic board above my head. It's blinking bright red letters and numbers. A014 is next but that doesn't tell me how soon it will be for me because they're not calling in any kind of order. A015 doesn't follow A014. It's H218 next.

I wonder, because it's Valentine's Day and the streamers are suggesting that I think about these things, if I'll ever have love in my life again. Sometimes I wonder if I'm even capable of feeling it anymore. This isn't something I'm sad about. What's more sad is how detached I feel from the question.

Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!

Nothing makes me feel less human than sitting in a room full of other humans who are waiting to be processed. Sometimes names are called, I guess the ones who are at the end of the process and their licenses are done.

But this is still better than love. This is still better than flowers and behind them all of the uncertainty, and my own bullshit. I am B105, waiting. Which window? Tell me when and which window? I'll wait in my row until the harsh red light flashes B105. It's preferable to chalky, tasteless hearts with alphanumeric codes like "Text u l8r." Staying single sometimes feels like self-love and a public service at the same time - and that perspective seems self-pitying and overly dramatic to me. I'm not really sure how to feel at all.

Dreams! Adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!

Ok, so maybe I'm not so detached. I'm just not sure that I can feel anything like that again. Maybe I fit with the rhythm of this place today. I'm ok with the little headaches of cracked plastic chairs and Window 11 now serving C135.

real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell. They jumped off the roof!

I was called to Window 18. And the computer is down. Cocksucker in Moloch. I dream Angels.

DMV Testing

You might recall my ex-boss who smells like onion bagels? Loretta Von Stink? The one who would tell me how to do something, change the rules a week later and then scream at me for doing it wrong? The one that my coworkers and I strongly suspected of being undead because she was pale and veiny and sometimes had a trickle of blood on her chin? Well, it turns out that she also illegally parks. That. Bitch.

I learned this yesterday when I got out of my car and picked up the scent of onion bagel. I resisted the urge to dive under a nearby SUV and hide, but bravely made my way towards the building knowing that I would probably bump into Loretta. And sure enough, she was getting out of her car in the next aisle...parked in a handi-capped spot (pause for moral outrage). There was no tag hanging from her rearview mirror, no blue little wheelchair guy on her license plate. She walks perfectly fine, aside from the fact that she staggers and gropes for brains. She's NOT handi-capped.

"What do we do?" I asked my coworker James after I'd set my stuff down and had a moment to conspire something. "Do we call the police?"

"I'm not sure they'd do anything. It's hospital property. Maybe hospital security?"

"We could. Makes me mad. Why is she parking there, there's lots of spots and it's not like it's far to walk from the parking lot to the building. Not for someone who's NOT handi-capped."

James thought about it. "Do they consider not having a soul a handi-cap?"

"Hmm. I don't know if the DMV would consider the lack of a soul a driving hazard."

"You would think that they would atleast test for it. They test your eye sight, maybe they should test whether or not your a soulless douche."

"What would that test be like?"

We came up with a test. We're hoping that the DMV implements it soon, what with the alarming rate of soulless douches there are on the road.

1)  For breakfast this morning you had:
     a. eggs
     b. cereal
     c. the blood of virgins

2) Your coat is made of:
     a. cotton
     b. faux leather
     c. Dalmatians

3) You are a manager. When your employee requests a day off you:
     a. approve her request
     b. do not approve her request
     c. kidnap one of her children

4) Your hair is made of:
     a. hair
     b. live snakes
     c. the broken dreams of your employees

If you answered "C" to any of these, you might not have a soul. This does not mean you can not drive a car. This simply means that you probably park illegally.

And I wish I had a more victorious ending to this story but Loretta had moved her car by the time I walked outside to check. Maybe she had a change of heart, like the zombies in the movie "Warm Bodies" whose hearts start beating again when they are touched by love. Or maybe she saw a puppy that she could park on top of instead. We'll never know.