Fond of rumpots, crackpots, and how are you, Mr. Wilson?

I got my dunce ass pulled over last night. It was my own stupid fault—I have a tendency to speed under the best of conditions, and the last leg of a three-hour commute home is not the best of conditions, so I failed to lift my cinder block foot from the gas on the exit ramp and got clocked at 57 in a 35 zone. I had already been rage-cruising for most of the trip, and had juuuust been getting myself into a better headspace with liberal application of Beastie Boys tracks when this happened, and...yeah, from there, my mood was toast. The police officer who nabbed me was terribly nice, though, which is blessing given that I wasn't aware that failing to switch to a Maine driver's license within 30 days of moving here is an arrestable offense. I got home, greeted hypnagogie, commiserated about how stressed she was, and joined her in declaring fuck the everything as we smothered our misery with sushi and G&Ts and Brooklyn Nine-Nine reruns. Good times.

So yeah, sorry, boss, can't come in to work today, because turns out? It's against the law. Also, your employee is a numpty.

Needless to say, the task at hand today was getting a new license, and I have to say that between the yesterday's cop and today's jaunt to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles I have to conclude that everyone on the state payroll in Maine must be a Canadian expat. I swear unto you, I have never had such a pleasant DMV/RMV/BMV experience as the one this afternoon: quick, friendly, no getting the impression that I'm inconveniencing the whole office with My Problem. Also, it was nice knowing that even with wet hair and a zit on the end of my nose the size of El Capitan, it will still be a better license photo than the previous one. (The photographer had managed to catch me a quarter of the way through a blink, so I look baked to the point that my language skills were somewhere behind me. Y'know, exactly the impression you want to give when you're pulled over.)

As I type this, the pouring rainstorm we've been enjoying is having its first lull, and my stomach is overfull with homemade burgers with havarti and avocado, and life is pretty dang good, all told. Should be good sleeping weather, which I'm greatly looking forward to. Good night, my dears. Dream kindly.

As a pacifist, a man over 40 and a proud lifelong wuss, my likelihood of experiencing military service is close enough to nil that you couldn't slip a nickel between them (save for the odd on-the-hoof, "we're on the fifth floor and the zombies are on the fourth so figure out how to make that AK-47 go boom pronto, mister" sort of soirée). But should I ever feel the raging need to know what army life is like, I'll just toddle on over to the Registry of Motor Vehicles and apply for another Massachusetts driver's license. Fun-tastic!

Now, in all fairness, the parallels are limited, in that unlike some prior Kafka-with-a-double-order-of-Brazil DMV/RMV experiences, the folks at the Watertown RMV work their hindquarters off to make sure the process is as streamlined as possible. This is a good thing indeed, except that this means You, Mr. or Ms. Prospective Driver, are constantly running two lengths behind their expectations of where and when you should be, and they will curtly and regularly remind you of this fact because they are all really f*cking cranky.

"CAN I HELP YOU." This was the woman at the initial customer service desk, once I'd made my way to the front of the line. The period at the end is not a typo.

"Well, yes, I moved here from New York, and I need to get a Massachusetts driver's li—"

"DO YOU HAVE ALL THREE FORMS OF I.D."

"Um, yes: local mail, old license, and birth certi—"

"GO OVER THERE AND FILL THESE OUT." Papers emerged from gods know where. They smelled like bureaucracy and broken dreams. "AND TRY TO BE FAST; WE'RE MOVIN' PEOPLE THROUGH QUICK TODAY. NEXT!"

I flung a "thank you" at a pair of deaf ears and headed to the nearest desk/shelf amalgam to locate a working pen, clutching a take-a-number ticket that read, "G428." I took a moment to squint at what they were asking for, then started scribbling: name, address, are you currently licensed in another state, what's your old license n—

*PING!* A voice came over the loudspeaker like a movie scene set in a Yugoslavian train station, if Yugoslavia were a town in New Jersey. "ATTENTION G428: PLEASE HEAD TO DESK 14." I cussed under my breath, grabbed the unfinished form, sprinted to the desk and slapped it down. My new prom date of the moment peered at the paper dyspeptically as I started yanking the necessary identification items out of my bag, certain I'd be tasered from behind if I wasted even one moment of these people's shattered lives.

"You didn't finish filling this out," she barked, too disgusted to even look at me.

"I know," I stuttered as I fumbled through my personal effects. "You guys were so fast, I couldn't—"

"Don't put that stuff down." She had already attacked my form with a green highlighter like she was killing ants. "Go back and finish, and come back when you're done." I was dead to her.

I hurriedly checked the few boxes I hadn't gotten to and signed, and threw myself back at Desk 14, elbowing some other poor woman out of the way in the process. I wanted to staple the form to her mouse pad just so she couldn't give it back to me.

From there, she was like a white collar ninja: Swoop! Xerox! Whoosh! Type! Zing! Demand information! The photo actually went surprisingly well, even though I look like I should be selling distressed Pepsi bottles on Ventura Beach (which come to think means it's a pretty accurate photo). My attempt to replicate my signature with the electronic pen didn't fare so well, though, because I accepted it before she told me I could try again, which means my usual proto-Sanskrit scrawl is now a proto-Sanskrit scrawl as attempted by a drunken Verbal Kint on a moving toboggan. But screw it, I've got my $100 piece of paper, and I got it with a 5-minute turnaround, so go, Massachusetts RMV!

* * * * *

Tonight, though, is my weekly Date Night with figmentj, which we've decided to make a study date as she's got a Test of Bigness to prepare for; I'll be spending my time (once I'm done with this LJ post) working on The Noise of Endless Wars. Wish me luck, and a lack of writer-brain-cloginess!