And having taken another look at NMs DL requirements I see why the MVD was telling everyone the higher requirements. NM now calls the Enhanced ID version a license. The non-compliant one is a driver's authorization permit. Everyone keeps asking what they need for a driver's license.
A Driver's Authorization Permit...
I love when people come up with new terms that make ordinary life more confusing...
I guess other states are calling them non compliant, limited use or old licenses...
Bureaucracy.
Note: Stop reading here if you suffer from any medical conditions or actually have stuff to do today...
I have nothing to do for the next 45 minute...
So...
Back in the 80s, there used to be a huge old Art Deco style DMV office on Worth street in lower Manhattan, (the building exterior and lobby has actually been used in a lot of "Law and Order" episodes...).
The place was the epitome of bureaucracy... (And very high ceilings)...
You could wait on a line for forty five minutes or an hour with a form, finally make it to the clerk (with dead eyes and an emotionless voice) and they would tell you, "That form is for window 12 this line is only for form 27C1.7... NEXT!"...
The "NEXT" was enunciated in such a way that it clearly said "BE GONE MORTAL SWINE!!!"
Not surprisingly that coincided with the old DMV's official seal which read "Mortale Porcos Vade Auferetur" (Go Away Mortal Swine... Or something like that)...(it might also be something about pork chops... My Latin is as bad as my memory)...
So then you would wait on line for window 12 for an equal or greater amount of time (the wait would increase in relation to humidity and temperature) only to have that clerk tell you "That's for window 7 this is the line for snow mobile trailer permits... NEXT!
No matter what you said, their answer was "NEXT!"...
But this was NYC and if you held up the queue, you risked starting a riot, so in the interest of civil order, you'd give up after five or six nexts at most...
At least by the 80s most of the trapdoors in front of the windows had stopped working, so thankfully you had that, back in the 60s and 70s, you'd get one next and BAM, you're explaining your problem to the basement alligators...
So you'd go to the line for window 7 (with a small bronze plaque numbered "32D"), which was the line you started on in the first place, the one with the big arrow shaped sign that said "License Renewal", only to find it was now the "License Renewal, Really Bad Body Odor, and Chronic Flatulence" line...
And there you'd steep in the dank odors of humanity, pissed off as hell that the Statue of Liberty left out the part about the constant farting when she was gushing about huddled masses yearning to breath free...
Being that the building was constructed before air conditioning, they would have these huge government fans made from the engines of surplus ww2 B-17 bombers...
Occasionally an old person would walk too close and get suck up onto the grill where they would be stuck until a janitor would come by with a long hooked stick and pull them off.
They might even still have them down south today... Those things last forever.
Despite that, all they did was blend the body funk and despair into a thick haze of confusion...
You got a clear idea of what Dante was think about when he wrote Inferno...
And there you'd wait again...
Then finally you'd get up to the window only to have the clerk walk off with no explanation...
No "I have to pee"...
No "I quit"...
No"Excuse me, Satan is calling, I'll be back in ten..."
Nothing... They would just walk off...
Ten minutes latter some other random clerk would shuffle over and try the same scam...
"This is a license renewal form, this is a farm equipment registration window, if you want to register a harvesting combine or porklift*, you'll have to fill out a form 27C1.9-J... Get them on line 42... NEXT!"
This could go on for days, often people would go mad with despair or jump out a window.
In the early 80s you actually had to wait on line just to get a form... Like they didn't trust you to take only one or you'd swipe a bunch and start selling them on the street... And half the time they would give you the wrong form too...
It was madness... And the best part was the signage... None of it was accurate...
The sign for window 14 was on window 8, the Men's Room sign led to a janitor's closet (but I used it anyway)... (Hey, they already had a mop and bucket in there so...)... There was an exit sign on the window... And the best was the huge sign listing all the stuff you couldn't use as ID...
Yeah, I got it, a pumpkin with a note written on it in sharpie marker, from my neighbor vouching for my identity is not valid ID... But what the hell was?
Nope.
75 things that weren't allowed, not one mention of what was.
Brilliant.
But one day I figured out a cheat...
As I got near window 942, one of the clerks shouted out to her coworker "Rose... You've got a call"...
It was clear that Rose was a clerk of great importance, just from her stride alone you could see she ruled with an iron fist or at least other metal device for punching people...
You could tell by the way the other clerks stepped out of the way, that they didn't just fear her sheer size, but she held some sort of authority over them...
Perhaps she was even their leader or queen?
As she stomped off behind the ancient filing cabinets, I realized I just acquired a vital bit of information...
When I got up to the window, the clerk there tried the old "sorry wrong window, this is for permits for motorcycle side cars for handicapped penguins"...
So I played my card...
"Oh... Well, Rose told me it was okay..." I said with great conviction.
With a little bit of skepticism and fear she asked "Rose who?"
With my best poker face I replied "Uhhh.... Big huge Rose?"
Luckily, despite my crude lack of sensitivity, as it turned out, years later I'd find out from the memorial plaque on the elevator shaft she fell down, Rose's last name was Beekhooge.
Look, it was the 80s and NYC, and I wasn't expecting anything other than "ok"...
Nowadays, I might have thought twice and said, "Rose with the Viking helmet" or "Rose with the leg of lamb in her meaty fist"...
She was wearing scary looking horn rim glasses... So could have used that too...
None of that would have rhymed with her last name though, so I lucked out.
Either way, my sweaty desperation and total lack of sensitivity payed off, the clerk took my forms, I paid and left.
I used the threat of Rose's wrath for a few more years until I learned it was less frustrating to go to Queens DMVs (the borough, not the nice old lady with the crown).
Thank you Scary Rose... Wherever you are.
Hopefully not at the bottom of that elevator shaft still...
Anyway... Sorry this was a long reminiscing of useless info that ended up having little to do with the previous topic, other than to elude to the ills of bureaucracy.
And possibly a cautionary tale about blindly stepping into elevator shafts too.
The Worth street DMV is long gone, apparently replaced by a marriage licensing office...
These days, at least in Suffolk county where I live, the DMVs are more efficient and less frustratingly insane... And now they high power lasers instead of trapdoors, so it's much cheaper than maintaining an alligator pen in the basement.
Anyway, I hope nobody read this as it was far too long and pointless... If you have sat through this, I apologize for the eye strain and headaches... Feel free to treat yourself to a cookie or some fun snack...
If I'll ever meet any of you in person, just mention coupon code WHATWASTHEPOINTOFALLTHAT, and I'll give you a free cookie or other baked snack**
*Porklift: A special forklift for lifting pigs. Technically not intended for farming, more commonly used for hoisting large swine onto stage during all pig performances of classic opera.
** Offer void in Antarctica, Guam and Luxembourg. Offerer reserves the right to substitute small freeze dried rodents for baked goods. One offer per person offended or otherwise harmed by my writing. Offer expires 6/9/17.
