There are some things in this life that we must do whether we like them or not. What these things are vary by person. Whereas someone like my father might absolutely loathe having to go to a theme park, there are those like those like me who hate to stand in line for activities that I am not very interested in. Ok, so maybe my Dad and I have a few similarities.

My trouble today surrounded a need to register my car with the State of Ohio. I have a whole day off of work and I the idea of taking a nap with no interruptions is extremely appealing. For a few hours I could pretend that there wasn’t laundry to do or errands to run. I could convince myself that a hard working guy like me deserves a little catch up time in the snooze department. Like the rest of America, deserving or not, I got stuff that I have to do. The DMV wants me to register my car.

I don’t know exactly why the state needs to know about my car. No one from the state has EVER come to my house saying “Greetings citizen, we are going through our records and making sure that all vehicles are in tip top shape. We would like to wash your car.” This in my opinion would be a good reason to register a car with the state. I don’t even know what happens to the scoff-laws who don’t bother to register modes of transportation. Perhaps when they find you, they punish you by making you register. I do know what the reward for registering your car is. Your spouse will almost immediately stop asking if you have registered your car yet. This is a very exciting development. Instead of sitting on the couch under a pile of potato chips and having to defend why watching reruns of MacGyver is more important than going to some government office to be ignored, you can sit under your pile of potato chips in peace (married guys might be the only ones to get that joke).

As far as pain goes standing in line at the DMV rates somewhere between talking to a car salesman and watching Biodome (starring Pauly Shore). It is certainly not on the scale of childbirth or attending a political convention, but at the very least quite annoying. This day was close to on par for what one might suspect. The biggest anomaly from the whole ordeal was that the line was a mere 3 people. I thought this was just because I went in at an odd time, 9:00 in the morning, but after I left I saw nearly 10 people waiting to be “serviced” by the DMV personnel. I must chalk this up to karmic repayment of clean living and helping little old ladies cross the street.

Here is the really odd part; even without the line there was no one there to assist me in my motor vehicle registration activities. Sure, there were people around, but they were all scurrying around looking busy. Some of them were engaged in conversation in order to ensure that they were not bothered by patrons. In other commercial establishments, I would make eye contact to try and get someone to imply that I should come over so they could help me. I would send out major brainwaves that clearly indicated, “Here is a person who would appreciate your professionalism”. This works much better with bartenders than with the DMV.

So instead, I took a social tactic I have used since the second grade. I stood at the head of the line and looked pitiful. Seriously, almost invariably you are wasting someone’s time who cares about having to be somewhere or having to do something. These type of folks offer advice such as “I think they can take you there”, “are you in line”, or in some cases “don’t make my kick your butt!” In any case, a conversation has been started and I can find my way through some layer of bureaucracy.

Sadly, after 5 minutes of the most forlorn and pitiful looks I could muster, the best I could do was overhear about how some local nightclubs served enough alcohol to make the next day at work somewhat annoying. Since I already had empirical evidence of my own to prove this point, I considered my net gain to still be at zero.

I would like this story to end up like those letters people write into Penthouse. You know the ones, people get propositioned in the most unlikely of places. Sadly, I have not read enough Penthouse to effectively rip off that genre, and my wife might read this so I would have to turn it into some kind of gentlemanly rejection. All in all it sounds like too much work. Afterall I just sacrificed several brain cells to stand in line at the DMV. I think I will just try to find a quiet place to take a nap.