Belben's Book Blog: Commando in the Reading Room

As I mentioned a couple of blogs ago, I recently celebrated the anniversary of my birth, and with it, the expiration of a drivers' license that still had me living on H Street. You know, at my ex-husband's house.

I work in a library. I own hundreds of books. And yet on the one occasion when I most needed reading material, I forgot to bring any. That's right, ladies and gentlemen: I went to the DMV without a book. If you've ever been there, you know just how dire this situation was. However, you also know that once you've arrived and plucked your ticket from the Take-A-Number machine, there is no turning back. Because the only thing worse than going to the DMV is going to the DMV again.

With a 20-25 minute wait ahead of me, a hard plastic seat under me, and 10 days of driving on an expired license behind me, I was trapped in the austere hell that is the Department of Motor Vehicles. There is nothing to do there except text-message your friends (mine were all at work), read the imminent-death-warning posters on the walls (hydroplaning! sleepiness! unsecured loads!), and judge the clothes/children/mental health (hideous! stupid! bipolar!) of the other unfortunates around you.

If you've ever sat next to me in the theater or at a faculty meeting, you know that I have some "issues" with sitting still; i.e. I find it virtually impossible. I don't do "calm." It's one of the reasons I didn't love being a TV writer--even though I was sitting at table with brilliant, funny, naughty people, I was SITTING AT A TABLE for six or seven hours a day. It was my own little Guantanamo. I'm not trying to one-up anyone on the whole shitty-day-at-the-DMV scenario. I just want to offer some backstory to explain what happened next.

Before I approached the counter where the crabby woman (they're all crabby, but, ok, I get it) yelled at me for reading the wrong line on the eye test and then told me that the address of my brand new home does not exist, I did this: I got up. I took a look around in desperation. And then I did it. I took a Driver Guide from the pile and returned to my butt-numbing plastic chair. And I read The Guide. Page. By. Tedious. Page.

Unless you are insomniac or 15 1/2, I don't recommend this. It's as boring as reading the instruction manual for your new dishwasher, only a thousand times more boringer. Also, it will scare the crap out of you (39,000 bicyclists die annually! cough medicine can impair your thinking! there is no Patron Saint of Subarus!)

However, if you started driving 25 years ago, like some people I know, it is refreshing to learn of the changes in road law that have occurred since th 80s. For example, there is now a phenomenon called "graduated licensing." It involves a complex series of ages, times, dates, and familial relations intended to prevent today's 16 year olds from driving a carload of their friends to a kegger off Chuckanut Drive in the family's Pinto station wagon. For example.

Also, modern inventions such as text-messaging and roundabouts make an appearance. Apparently, you're not supposed to look at a teeny-tiny keyboard and type with your thumbs while operating a motor vehicle. Whatever. The old regulations are still there--the stuff about yielding to pedestrians and checking your blind spot and not letting your three-year-old grandson drive your car (see photo)--so it's still the same old fun-crushing crapload of rules. But it got me through 20 minutes. And it might do the same for you.