Unless you want to spend hours upon hours waiting in the great splendor that is any Oklahoma Tag Agency, don't you DARE let your driver's license expire. Listen here, friends, to my tale of woe...
Saturday morning, April 19, 2008.
I had resolved earlier in the week to renew my license this weekend at a local tag agency known to me to be open on Saturdays: the Southside Tag Agency on 87th and Lewis. I checked in the phone book prior setting off to make sure they actually issued the licenses. According to their ad in the phone book, I was good to go.
I arrived less than three minutes after their posted opening time of 9:00 a.m., but still had to sign in behind three other more eager individuals. I was a good lemming and signed the list, sat down, and waited. I immediately began reading the hodgepodge of home-made signs posted on the walls in an effort to make sure that I had with me all that I needed. No sign indicated any lacking.
After about fifteen minutes, my name was called. I walked confidently to the counter, handed the tag agency lady my driver's license and stated "I'd like to renew my license, please." She took one glance at the card and shot back, "This is expired. I can't help you."
Much to my surprise, I found myself without words for this. Such an event was not in my script for the day. I needed to renew my license today and if she, the fair queen of all things motor vehicle, could not help me, then who in all the land of Oz could?
"There's only two places you can go", she declared, "and only one of them is open on Saturday."
"That's fine, where?"
"The Barnes Tag Agency on ninety first and Sheridan", she barked, "They're open until noon."
"Okay, thank you." I headed for the door; a bit frustrated, but, I thought, it's going to be okay.
BONG! cried the electronic door bell as I exited.
"And you'll need your birth certificate!" she called to me.
WHAT? What the @%!* did I need my birth certificate for!?!?
"Or a certified copy."
I'm still not quite sure why she bothered to add that.
A sense of dread now fell over me. I was not quite sure where my original birth certificate was. A fault to especially loathe. I immediately called my parents and discovered that it was in fact still in their possession. I scurried to their house and obtained quickly what I believed was my ticket out of tag agency hell. Question: What if I had been born in Hawaii? I'll leave you to ponder that as I truly fear to.
Nearly without delay, I hurried to the Barnes Tag Agency. Upon arrival I was met by the long and pallid faces of the damned. Those poor souls condemned to their at-least-once-a-year stay in hell's septic tank. After attempting to converse with the gate-keepers (the employees) who regarded me as something of an oddity since I hadn't yet lost my will to live or to seek out information. Much to their chagrin, I was walking about looking for help; quite obviously coloring outside the lines. Suddenly, a crusty, charred, and bony skull cried out to me, informing me that I needed to sign in, though no sign indicated such. Again, I did as I was told: signed in underneath about six others, took a seat and waited.
And waited.
Ninety minutes and several awkward conversations later, my name was called. As I approached I could feel the energy of life begin to fill my limbs. There was light. Light, I say! Indeed, I was about to be purged from this gunky sink-trap! I handed the gate-keeper my license and my all-powerful talisman: The Birth Certificate. He was surprisingly courteous as he advised me of the cost of my liberation. I wrote the check, handed it to him.
Freedom...I could nearly taste it.
"I just need to make a copy of this", he said as he picked up The Birth Certificate.
I was a bit nervous about him taking it even a small distance from me. I had checked my pocket about a dozen times during my drive to make sure it had not evaporated. But, what choice did I have. Besides, he didn't even wait for a reply, much less any kind of approval. I watched him keenly the entire time.
I could feel the zombies staring at me from behind. About ten more souls had been sucked into this awful place before I was called to the Desk of Freedom. Their chests heaved. Their eyes were wide and their mouths agape in anticipation of my departure. And their promise of ascension to The Desk.
The gatekeeper returned and I snatched up The Birth Certificate before he could even set it down. Referring back and forth to the copy he had made, he began pecking keys on his computer. After a few seconds, a quizzical look came over him.
"Sir", he said. "Can I see your birth certificate again?"
Oh no.
Feeling my life-force begin to ebb, I handed it to him. Even the zombies withdrew a bit from my heels. They seemed to sense that my release date had been pushed back at least a few decades.
I uttered the one sentence that seemed to almost ensure my doom: "Is there a problem?"
No response. The Gatekeeper simply kept looking from his computer to the copy to the original Birth Certificate...round and round and round again. Seeing his superior near by, he stepped over to him to confer. I was doomed. The zombies sighed.
After about 10,000 years or thirty seconds (I can't remember exactly how long it was) the Gatekeeper trained his merciless, yet half-witted gaze upon me.
"Sir," he said. "I can't process this."
Have you seen 'Scanners'?
"You see right here", he pointed to a blank area of The Birth Certificate. "This is where there should be a birth number".
No area of any form in all my years of form-filling and form-reading ever seemed so formless and void of form.
He pointed to the one three-digit number that was there and explained...
"That number corresponds to the state of your birth, but after it there should be another number...a birth number."
The Birth Certificate had none.
Neither the GateKeeper nor his superior could tell me what the number meant or why I should have one or why The Birth Certificate, which had served me well for over 38 years, should now be so useless.
"We can only abide by the regulations legislated by the government that we're required to abide by".
A statement that even now I can't really decipher. When I asked who I needed to talk to about why this was happening, I was told to "contact my state senator". Yeah, right. I'll get right on that.
I picked up my impotent birth certificate (no capitals for you now) and skulked out of that dreary cesspool. Not liberated, merely paroled, and apparently condemned to seek further punishment in an even deeper circle of hell.
Before I left, the GateKeeper handed me my ticket to the next level. Upon it were written the names, phone numbers, and addresses of three offices for The Department of Public Safety. Apparently, since my driver's license is expired and that I'm sans birth number, I'm a danger to the safety of my fellow Oklahomans. I was informed that I should go to the one in Broken Arrow (the farthest from my home) since they are "faster and friendlier".
Perhaps their guillotine blades are sharper too.
More to come...
NOTES:
I invite you to visit the SOUTHSIDE TAG AGENCY WEBSITE. Please note that the site has been up since 2000 and already overflowing with at least 10 kilobytes of really useful information like telephone numbers, address, and hours of operation. Man, the internet is really something, isn't it!?!? Well, maybe I've got to get a tag for my computer before I can REALLY ride the information superhighway!
