I’d Like To Lodge a Complaint

Can I just tell you about the day I’ve been having? But first, some context.

I go to college in Oregon, but I’m originally from Colorado. This meant that, when I turned 21 and my driver’s license expired, I was out of state and couldn’t gt a new, “adult” license. After a very rude DMV employee berated me over the phone back in January, I sent a $3 check to the Colorado Division of Motor or whatever, in Denver, to get a sticker that extends my license for another year, until I could get BACK to Colorado to renew it for real. I did this.

No one believes the sticker, but I managed to get by until I finally came back to Colorado last Tuesday. Wednesday I went to the DMV around 11am, book and ID ready. I waited for two hours and then found out at the counter that I needed proof of address because of national security of some drivel. I, of course, was not informed of this prior, and so the first two hours I spent at the DMV this past week was wasted.

Then came today. I got up at 6:45am to get to the DMV by 7:30, when I thought they opened, so I could just get everything over with quickly and go on my merry way. I didn’t have a book this time because I expected to get by with just an iPhone game and also because my bag was full of my laptop, since I planned on going to a coffee shop and writing afterwards. When I got there and paid 50 cents for an hour’s parking, I discovered that the DMV doesn’t open until 8am. That’s fine, I could wait. I played Jetpack Joyride contentedly while more people drove up to wait with me.

8am! The doors magically opened and we all shuffled inside. By the time we get to the DMV office, I’m second in line, so I get to step right up and give the lukewarm lady my information. I’ve got three different proofs of address and exact change and I’m quickly processed and directed to sit in line to get my photo taken. I do, and begin to check Twitter, expecting to be out in the next fifteen minutes.

The guy that’s supposed to take my picture sits at the computer and looks confused. He calls another woman over and she looks concerned. We learn that the computer is not logging on. I don’t panic, figuring a few extra minutes of IT help and we’d all be on our way.

And then it was 9am. Apparently, the entire state of Colorado has been having computer and server issues since Friday and didn’t bother to tell anyone. By 9:15, they were issuing people 30 day extensions if their license had expired in the past 30 days and alerting the rest of us that they had no estimation when we would be able to move forward with the process. The four of us already processed and ready for the last step asked what that meant for us. Well, it meant that they’d refund our money and we’d have to come back later, unless we wanted to keep waiting for an indeterminate amount of time. Being processed already gave us no special treatment.

My phone was running out of battery, I had nothing to do, and my meter had run out at least a half hour previously. After about fifteen more minutes, it was clear the THREE DAYS Colorado had to fix itself hadn’t done ANY good, I asked for a refund and drove to Starbucks because I f**king deserved a cake pop after that nonsense. In the car I screamed a few times for good measure and had myself a quick little cry.

Want to know the highlight of my day so far? At least I didn’t get a parking ticket.

Thank God I’m going to see Star Trek tonight with some of my boys. I need to blow off steam.

Oh and I got an Instagram, because I guess I didn’t feel pretentious enough. Follow me or don’t. I hope your day is better than mine is.