Anytime I have to do something that has to do with government providing a “service,” the outcome is a predictable sort of pathetic. Today I went to the Secretary of State (the SoS is Michigan’s department of motor vehicles) about mid-morning, figuring that I would miss the early morning wait-outside-the-door crowd and the “I’ll swing by during lunch” crowd. And I did – I walked in and there were less than twenty people waiting inside this DMV “super center.”
There used to be the pull-a-number machine immediately upon entering this wretched place that resembles a misery chamber, but the number thingy was … gone. I kept turning around – okay, where do I go, what do I do? One lady who noted my confusion pointed over to a long line of people and said to go wait there. I then saw a (little) sign that read “Wait here to get a number to wait in line.” Some people behind me followed me to the pre-line waiting line. I asked some folks sitting in the wait seats nearby: “Is this a line to get a number to wait in line?” A couple of doleful waitees replied, “Yep.” I burst out laughing, and I asked, “You’re kidding?”, while looking for a response from the chorus of sheeple. People stared at me, not understanding why I was howling.
After a long wait, a young girl beckoned me to the counter and asked what services I needed. I told her I needed plates for my motorcycle, and I asked if I was going to do it here, while at her counter. She said no, this was a pre-line line and that she had to give me my number, but not until she approved me to get into line. This tax-feeding gal, who probably had nothing more than a paper diploma from her tax-feeding high school, told me to get out all of my documents so she could advise me (and treat me like a moron and talk to me like my IQ was barely pushing 70). I said, “You mean you aren’t going to do anything to service this request…..you are just going to look over what I am doing, and then hand me a number to go to another line and wait again?” She said she was sorry to inconvenience me, but that this was necessary to help customers prepare with the proper documents before they got called up to see the customer service reps. I said, nicely, that I could appreciate she was doing her job, but that I was no customer; I was an unwilling hostage in an extortion racket. I love the looks I get when I sneak in those kinds of comments.
Perhaps if government rules and regulations (“services”) weren’t so overbearing, invasive, confusing, conflicting, and maddening, people might understand exactly what to do each time they get a different marching order, and they wouldn’t be confused by the TSA-type overlords, with their glasses on chains, barking out the Twenty Commandments of having your documentation ready so you won’t be banished from your space in line. Remember that people have come to accept that it is entirely reasonable for a criminal gang disguised as the guardians of law and order to force you to pay extortion fees so that you may voluntarily transact with others in the exchange of goods for money, and use your own property in a peaceful and productive manner. Yes, we pay the state for the sins of our transactions and the privilege of our chosen activities.
