Hair Validation at the DMV

Hello and welcome to yet another edition of Suburban Lesbian Talks About Her Driver's License and Her Hair. We'll wrap up this week's theme by discussing how the individual threads running amok through my life, and therefore my brain and my keyboard, merged together into the same lane. They bumped, albeit briefly.

Wait! No! Don't run away! I promise this is the last post about my hair. Well. At least until the next time. Some people feel I'm a bit hair-obsessed these days.

This story starts at the DMV. That's the Division of Motor Vehicles for those unaware. No one I know looks forward to going to the DMV, but Virginia's DMV is fairly efficient considering the number of people it serves. That doesn't stop my whining about having to go.

First stop is at the info desk. There you state your needs, are provided with appropriate paperwork and issued a number. You take a seat in the vast waiting area, fill out the paperwork, and wait for your number to be called.

The info lady manning the desk smiled as I approached.

I confidently looked her right in the eye, smiled back and, like it was not something either shameful or embarrassing, boldly said, "My license was suspended and I'm here to get it back." I tried not to cringe as the words rolled out of my mouth. They didn't taste very good.

The smile melted off her face like ice on asphalt in August. She looked down her nose with a sneer and flung the appropriate paper and my number at me. I slunk off to join the other sheep in the waiting area.

Along one wall are stations which each have a display above them that flashes the number of the customer being served. A calm female voice periodically calls out a number and station assignment: "Now serving E606 at window number 10." It's almost soothing. For the first 10 minutes or so.

My number was called 45 minutes after I arrived. I hastened to my assigned station, sizing up the woman behind the counter as I approached. Would she sneer at me too?

She was of grandmotherly age, overweight with long gray hair. Except for her bun. The bun on top of her head was tawny. Yes, she had a bun and long hair hanging down. Her expression screamed "attitude" but exactly what attitude remained to be seen. She lackadasically applied her Neutrogena hand lotion and recapped the tube as she read her computer screen. Glancing up, she gave me the once over and said, "So what kind of trouble did you get yourself into, young lady?" Her wry sense of humor made the whole humiliating process more bearable.

The paperwork with my old license and passport clipped to it made its way to the lady at the photo station. She called my name and as I approached, she was looking at my old license. Then she looked at me.

"Wow," she said. "Your hair is so much prettier now than it was when this old photo was taken."

As I departed the DMV, I sported a large grin. Not only because I was legal again but because some stranger complimented my hair.

I am such a simple woman. A simple woman who is now done talking about her hair. Until the next time. You have been warned.

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