Perhaps in the scheme of things, such as women being burned to death, militant leaders recruiting children and sometimes beheading them to further their religious insanity, and China deciding they have the moral authority to choose the next Dalai Lama, the following complaint would seem insignificant or as some would say “a first world problem”, nevertheless I feel compelled to write. WARNING! I you don’t like vent pieces, save yourself and stop reading now. Otherwise follow me over the fold.
I’ve lived in Colorado since 1984, you do the math, and I’ve lived at the same address for a decade. During all that time I have had a current driver’s license and according to the law that governs it, the privilege to drive. I last needed to renew ten years ago. A renewal was due again. However because it had been ten years I couldn’t do any of that fancy new technology stuff like renew on line, I had to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles, which sent chills up my spine, because no one likes to go there because of the LINES and the reputation that the workers have of being cogs in the government machinery with as much personality. Images of the 1985 movie Brazil danced in my head. So I scheduled an entire morning to get the renewal done. I grabbed some envelopes with my address, just in case and headed that way. I was greeted at the door with big signs announcing that I would have to have proof of address before being issued a license, renewal or new. I later understood that this was primarily to verify my residency in the state. Never mind that I have been in the same state, so therefore have electronic tracks miles long with the DMV itself, vehicle insurance, vehicle license /registration, voter registration and organ donor listing for over thirty years and have lived at the same address for a decade. They were still looking for proof in the form of a piece of paper. Having been raised in a military family, I know the government’s love for paperwork, so I was prepared with unopened envelopes showing my address, AH HAH!
Ten years ago when I renewed my license, I walked into the DMV with my old license, stated that there were no changes to report, had my picture taken, paid the fee and was on my way. Just like that, just like the time before that and the time before that. During the past ten years a few changes have taken place. During this renewal round I heard a clerk at the DMV ramble about “federal law’’, “Bush” “Real Id …2006” discovering to my horror that they had to have proof of my physical address to verify my residency in a state that I have lived and worked in for over three decades and a United States Postal Service PO Box will not do. The problem is that in my rural area there is no curb side mail delivery, never has been and probably never will be. I have always had to use a PO Box, well a utility bill should have that info the clerk offered helpfully, no not when you are off the grid with solar and such. An irony is that private PO Box companies will give you a PO Box number and their physical address to use and you don't even have to physically be on premise. I left fuming but undaunted and proceeded to download property tax records, income tax forms and bank statements. The property tax form had only my spouse’s name listed and was the only form to show an actual physical address so income tax forms, and bank statements were needed to show our mutual connection, those forms had the PO info so that the bank and IRS could actually mail something to me. By the time I had the forms printed and ready it was too late to go back to the DMV, so I had to wait and schedule another day, another block of time. Thoughts of gas, time, money, and resources were chugging through my head. Next morning bright and early I headed in to the DMV again and was duly informed that since my name wasn’t on the property tax form just my legal spouse’s name that it was not proof enough of my residency in the state of Colorado. For a moment I felt like I was standing on Mars. They ignored the fact that both our names appeared on current income tax forms and current bank statements showing us legally at the same address even though a USPS PO. I appealed to the clerk’s sense of logic, my mistake, he called his manager to issue an “exception” and she immediately fired off a repeat of federal mandates that dictated that I had to provide proof of my physical location. I reminded her that the purpose was to establish residency in the state, which I had done according to their own records for thirty some years. It was like talking to a tank. The sign behind her announced the weight of law if anyone dared to get out of hand at the counter, which was for me slowly creeping into reality. I was beginning to feel the weight of Homeland Security on my shoulders and realized just how far we have come in allowing the bad guys to win. When the tank stepped away her subordinate began to whisper that there was a way. I had the feeling that a bribe was in the making, which I would have gladly paid. But instead he suggested I get a notarized letter signed by husband saying that I lived at the physical address with him. Instead I went to my bank where they kindly did a system override to add my physical address, printed out a statement and notarized it stating that I had been a customer in the state for a couple of decades, then reentered my PO Box so that my mail service from them would go uninterrupted. I returned to Homeland Security aka DMV and was issued my new license but not before being told to remove the beautiful scarf from around my neck, a present from my daughter, it would have looked so lovely in the photo that I will have to haul around for another decade before having to again prove my presence in the state that is my home. The scarf had to be removed because it would interfere with facial recognition software, which will come in handy for when I join the revolution.