September Memorable Moments.

  1. Emilee is sitting on the floor staring at her feet. All of the sudden she gets quite concerned and says, “Mom my toes are broken and I don’t know what happened to them.” Apparently she was trying to spread her toes and she could spread the ones on her right foot but not her left, after trying many times she was concerned they were broken. I explained to her that they were not broken sometimes you just can’t spread your toes. Every now and then I ask her if she ever got her toes fixed and she usually says something along the lines of, “No. I don’t know what is going on with those toes.”  She says it in a very matter of fact tone, like she has been putting a lot of thought into it on a regular basis.
  2. Matthew has a blanket that he fell in love with the second it touched him when he was just a few weeks old. He has slept with it since then and the think looks like it has been ‘loved’ to death. I have sewn it almost as much as I can to keep it in one piece, but it is getting pretty shredded. I went into say goodnight to him one night and was laying by him and talking for a little bit. He was twisting his blanket around in his hands and there was a lull in the conversation. Then he said, “Mom just feel this blanket, rub it with your fingers just like this, and twist it around your wrist.” I tried to do what he was showing me and he said, “Isn’t that amazing how comfortable and satisfying that feels!” He then showed me all the favorite parts of his blankets and the best way to sleep with it. I loved that he tried to explain the amazingness of his blanket to me. It made me chuckle.
  3. I was working in the yard and Emilee called me to see something. I walked around to where she was at, she was pointing at a tiny little hole she had found by the window and said she thought that is how all the flies were getting into our house. I told her I thought it was because of the door she left wide open behind her while she looked for little holes.
  4. This one isn’t even my kid but it made me laugh anyways. I went to lunch with Allison at school the other day. Towards the end of our lunch the next group of kids came in and sat down to start eating. I would guess they were second graders. As we were sitting there visiting I noticed one boy who had brought his lunch from home take the apple out of his lunch and make a ‘ewe gross’ face. Then he casually took the apple and hung it from his hand behind him as low as it would go then dropped it on the floor under the table. Allison saw it too and we both looked at each other and laughed. She knew exactly why he dropped it and thought it was hilarious. Little stinker, I should have figured out who it was and told his mom. He would have wondered how in the heck she found out. Hahaha! The mom network, that’s how! Anyway, I told Alli to just bring her food home if she wasn’t going to eat it, and we finished our lunch.
  5. Emilee has always been a momma’s girl. Being in my presence is great but we have a family joke (that is kind of true) she prefers to be physically touching me whenever possible. While this is sweet, it can be frustrating at times too. Like in church when it isn’t her turn to sit right next to me she holds her hand out in my direction and gives me ‘puppy dog eyes’ and silently sobs for all of sacrament. All day kindergarten has been a big adjustment for her. Once she is there she does fine and has a great day but bedtime before and the morning of can be a little rough. She has said things like this many times but one night it made me smile when she was being particularly dramatic and said, “Mom, I can’t go to school tomorrow. It is so long. I can’t go that long with out touching you!”
  6. Emilee is not a morning person. This was one of her funnier ways of showing us she still wanted to be in bed rather than up eating breakfast.

How many packs do you have?

So Matthew works out a lot for baseball and football and he has recently become interested in getting strong well defined muscles like his arms and his abs. The other day he was explaining his plan to turn his four pack into a six pack and then an eight pack to Ryan and I. It was a very entertaining conversation. Allison and Emilee overheard it and Allison decided she was going to get an eight pack first and then keep going until she had a twelve pack. So the past week or so we have seen a lot of sit ups and crunches and many unknown exercises that apparently strengthen your abs. The funny part is the way they talk about it, they don’t really know what they are talking about. Allison skipped up and told me that she her two pack was now a three pack after doing sit ups for thirty seconds. I play smacked Matthew in the stomach the other day when he was being a smart mouth. He quickly replied that I missed because he blocked it with one of his packs.  Emilee asks us to tell her how many packs she has all the time or just picks a random number to say she has. What a bunch of goof balls.

Matthew’s Football

Matthew decided to try football this year. It is a little crazy with practice and game schedules because he is doing baseball too. He is liking it but hasn’t taken to it as easily as other things he has tried. He is a little nervous about contact but he is getting better. His last game he recovered a fumble and scored with a touch down. He was pretty excited. We happened to be playing a team that one of his baseball team mates is on, his dad is one of his baseball coaches actually. He also likes to take pictures so he took some of Matthew for us and got some of his touchdown run too. Someday I might add becoming a better photographer to my list of things to learn to do. I really appreciate all the people that take pictures for us.

Fall FINALLY arrived!

The past few years I have noticed that I really enjoy the changing of the seasons. I am ready for the change and the different activities with each one.We were at a baseball tournament and football game a few weeks ago. The temperature was 89 but with the heat index it felt like over 100. It was so humid and stagnant. Ugg! It was like that from the beginning of September to just this week. Then we had a little rain storm and it cooled down and the next morning it had that cool crisp fresh feeling in the morning. Aaahhh! I love it.  We got the Fall decorations out, I put Mums in my planters, we have been having yummy soups for dinner, and going on walks to enjoy the beautiful weather.

Allison has decided that her new gymnastics place is better than she thought. She is progressing quickly. I felt like she was on the cusp of being able to do a lot of things for a while at the last place we went for gymnastics. I switched her to a new place I thought would be a little more aggressive in getting them to progress. I started Emilee in a class too. Allison was pretty upset at first and said it was awful and they didn’t know what they were doing. I told her to give it 6 months before she ‘insisted on switching back’. She has been there almost two months now and a few weeks ago she admitted its pretty fun. Her and Emilee both look forward to it every week. Now I am trying to get her to do the same thing for her new piano teacher.

Matthew and his friends like to play night games sometimes. Another fun Fall activity is having an evening fire pit with the neighbors and roasting some marshmallows.

We usually take turns eating dinner with Ross and Lauren at one of our houses on Fast Sunday. This month we went to their house. When we were cleaning up dishes I was wiping off a counter and when I looked up this little guy was hanging on the rim of the cabinet.  He is probably only about an inch tall. Ross got him at a white elephant party. He is a drink marker, he hangs on the edge of your cup. The one he happened to get at the party had Ryan’s name on it. I thought it was pretty funny.

 

I volunteered for a few things since school started. I am enjoying it trying some new things. I volunteered to do dental screenings at elementary schools. I go and evaluate the kids teeth and let their parents know if they need to see a dentist. I am going to be a co-leader for Emilee’s girl scout troop. That one makes me a little nervous. I think it will be fun but it is a pretty big troop-17 girls. I hope I don’t go crazy. I am helping two of the kindergarten teachers once a week with prep work stuff too-copying, laminating, whatever they need. I have a goal of helping at Harvesters Food Bank once a month too if I can. That with all my regular stuff keeps me pretty busy. I like it.

That’s right!

Today I took apart my dryer and fixed it. That’s right, you read that correctly. I took it apart, fixed it, and put it back together. I didn’t have any extra parts when I was done either. Booyah! High five for myself.

September Happenings.

Wow! The last few weeks have flown by. School and activities and other things are in full swing now. There is always something going on.

We finished the last weekend in August off by going to The Great Wolf Lodge for Aaron’s birthday. We had a great time! We tried all the slides, all the pools, and tried almost every kind of ice cream by the time we were done. Matthew was done around 3 after a full day of swimming. We had to drag the girls away at 4 to get back in time for baseball practice. Six hours of swimming wasn’t enough.

Allison and Matthew seem to have adjusted to school and handle their schedules pretty well. Emilee is still struggling a little bit. She seems to have a little bit of separation anxiety. She was nervous but doing okay, until last Friday I left her crying on the curb at school and thought she was going to follow me home. A teacher helped her make it to class but her teacher said it was a rough start to the day. Monday I walked her into class. The rest of this week I told her if she was a brave girl and got out of the car everyday this week and walked in like a big girl, I would come eat lunch with her on Friday. That worked pretty good. I think that will be our deal for the next couple weeks. Once she gets there and going she does great and has a good day. It is just hard to wake up and go in the mornings. We invited a friend Laney over today that she met in class. They are pretty good buddies and she lives just around the corner so that will be nice to have a friend close by.

Emilee having a hard time accepting it is time to wake up and get ready for school.

Emilee went to a birthday party last week and was so excited to tell me that she got to fight Darth Vader with a purple sword when she got home. I love it when kids get so excited over fun simple things like that.

Last week was really rainy so football and baseball were canceled and moved to this week. That makes this week extra busy, but Matthew had his first football game last night. His coach has been talking with him about needing to be more aggressive and commit to his tackles more. He has been struggling with that and getting pretty frustrated. Last night at his game he was not going to play to much because his coach wanted him to get a little better at tackling first. Another player broke his arm at school so Matthew took his place. He is still a little timid but he did better than he has ever done at tackling. He took a couple people down and evaded a couple tackles. He was pretty proud of himself, so were we and so was his coach. His coach told him he figured out Matthew was a little surprise he wasn’t expecting.

I was going through some papers the other day and I found this little note that Matthew wrote for his dad. Every year on Matthew’s birthday they have a race because Matthew thinks he is faster than Ryan and Ryan has to prove he isn’t.  Matthew wrote this for Ryan to intimidate him before their next race. Hahaha!

Matthew’s intimidation note to Ryan.

My birthday was nice. Ryan gave me an Apple Watch, it is pretty handy. He said I have no excuse for not answering or texting him back quickly now. I spent the day reading and relaxing and watching chick flicks. I went to lunch with some friends and we went to dinner as a family. The kids cleaned my car really well for my present. It was at my request and it is still a work in progress but they said they would get it done by this weekend. I watched a movie called, ‘All About Steve’ as part of my relaxing. It has Sandra Bullock in it, who I really like. The reviews were not good but I decided to watch it anyway and it was hilarious. It was supposed to be more ridiculous humor, and it must have been right up my alley because I was laughing a lot. It was a nice day. I did notice that most people asked me how young I was, instead of how old I am. I’ll take that as a sign that I am starting to head more towards the ‘older’ category instead of the ‘younger’ category.

I started the next phase of repainting my house. I picked the colors when we bought it and I still like them but the builders painted with flat paint. So I have been gradually repainting everything with a better paint when the wall gets so dirty that I can’t stand it anymore. I really hate painting, but I love a freshly painted wall. Especially one that I can wash when it get dirty. I also put most of my Fall decorations up. Not my Halloween yet, just Fall. I love Fall. I love being able to sit out on the porch and relax and enjoy the weather. I love that the Holidays are getting ready to start too.

Allison is really liking gymnastics. I switched where she was taking classes because she had stalled in her progression for a while. She wasn’t happy about it but I told her she had to give it a few months and she would notice lots of improvement. She has been there for about a month now, she is not complaining when I pick her up any more and she has gotten better in several areas. She is excited about it again and work on it at home a lot more. She is often doing sit-ups or arm exercises to help herself get stronger.

 

Genetics are strong.

Many years ago my two sisters came upon some stink bombs that they were very excited to put to good use. I was not living at home anymore but they filled me in later. I can’t remember what they did with all of them but I know one ended up in the 18 hole at a mini putt putt golf course and could be smelled from the parking lot, where they observed from afar and laughed their heads off. Another one ended up in my brothers room and I have been told many times since that was probably the maddest they had ever seen him. They still laughed their heads off, just at a safe distance.

Fast forward a decade or so and…

Allison wanted to do a little shopping with some of her money that she had recently acquired. It usually starts burning a hole in her pocket the second she gets it so she wanted to go to 5 Below and see what treasures she could find (5 Below is a step or two above a dollar store, but everything is $5 or less) She meandered around and eventually found the prank aisle and thought she had enough money to get a whoopee cushion, fake little pieces of poop, and a small aerosol can of ‘fart smell’. (Insert emoji slapping its forehead) Luckily, she did not have enough to get all of those things, but despite my efforts to find something not in the poop category to spend her money on she put back the whoopee cushion and took the other two up to the front to pay.

When she checked out she actually only had enough money for one. I again told her we could go find something else but she agonized for what I am sure the people behind us in line felt like was forever over her decision until finally deciding to just buy the stinky spray (insert emoji with fallen disappointed face) After making her purchase she then skipped out to the car pleased as punch with herself.

On the way home she decided to test it. I should have seen this coming but didn’t think through needing possible rules for the stinky spray before we even got home. She sprayed it in the car and immediately started complaining that it didn’t even stink and she was going to email the company and tell them ‘their fart spray stinks because it doesn’t stink.’ Mean while, I am driving the van and was unfortunately sitting in a location in front of the direction she sprayed the stuff. It did stink! It was foul and disgusting and unlike a ‘real fart’ it didn’t dissipate after a few seconds (actually got stronger), or by rolling the windows down. It was disgusting and of course Allison thought it was hilarious. I immediately laid down some ‘stinky spray rules’ (never saw that coming before I became a mom) and told her no more spraying it in the car or other enclosed spaces.

Allison is the worlds best negotiator though and she baked up some story to spray a little in Matthew’s room as a joke on him because he pulls little pranks on her all the time. I could tell this was the entire grand plan behind getting the stuff in the first place so I told her she could do it one time. Matthew does pull lots of pranks on her.

Allison decided to sneak in his room when he went down for breakfast on Sunday morning before church. She sprayed some stench in his room them came down to eat. Matthew went upstairs to shower. Alli was bouncing with excitement waiting to hear his yell, or gagging sound or something. Nothing. He showered and got dressed then came out. I figured he tried the ‘just ignore it’ tactic to make Allison mad. I forgot about it and finished getting ready in my room. Allison was not ready to just move on though. She went in his room and sprayed some more. She made up some excuse to have Matthew come upstairs to his room, which he did…nothing. Didn’t react in anyway. He went back downstairs. Allison was not to be deterred though. She sprayed more, a lot more. So much more that it came out of Matthew’s room and down the hall and Ryan started to smell it from his closet. (Side note, Ryan was not happy I ‘let’ her buy the stink spray. He said it was a ‘bad choice’ and he ‘wished I wouldn’t have let her do that’ (insert emoji rolling eyes)) He came out to see what was going on and was ‘assaulted’ by the horrible smell now filling the hall and floating down the stairs. I don’t know what reaction she wanted from Matthew but she got one from Ryan. All previous stinky spray rules were erased and a new one was put in place.

NO stinky smell sprays are allowed to be used, stored, or even brought into the house or they will be thrown away and destroyed immediately with no compensation to the owner.

Apparently bad smells make Ryan pretty grumpy. That isn’t a big surprise, he is always telling the kids, ‘Don’t be the stinky kid.’ By this time everyone was getting annoyed and gagging at the smell, except for Matthew who was down stairs with his nose in a book oblivious to everything. While I was opening windows and getting some Febreeze I asked Matthew if his book was so good he couldn’t smell the stench overtaking the house. He said, “No, but my allergies are so bad that I can’t smell anything.”  I told Allison why her prank didn’t work and she was pretty annoyed. HAHAHA!

So we finished getting ready for church and headed out the door. When we got to church Matthew came and sat between Ryan and I.  I kept catching whiffs of the smell. I guess there was some that settled on his clothes when he was in his room and hadn’t had enough time to go away yet. Alli sprayed A LOT of it.  I was making a game plan to get some smelly lotion or oils from someone to help cover the smell but by the time sacrament was over the luckily the smell was gone. By the time we got home the smell was gone from the house too. I did one more round of Febreeze in Matthew’s room so that he was safe from being the stinky kid after sleeping in his room all night. Allison’s remaining spray may or may not have been misplaced. All in all though I think she felt like it was a great purchase.

The DMV

Ugg! I had the pleasure of renewing my drivers license today. I say that with as much sarcasm as possible. It is such a cliche. I prefer to imagine I have stepped onto a Parks and Rec television set and am playing a part in a ridiculous comedy about the mind numbing process of getting your drivers license renewed. It is a little less depressing and more entertaining from that perspective.

After I got tired of reading my book, doing a cross word, catching up on emails, making a meal plan for the next two weeks, then staring into space being bored,  I decided to make a helpful little blog post about successfully managing the DMV while I waited.

Helpful Tips for Going to the DMV.

  1. Do not just wander into a DMV all willy-nilly. It is important to pick a time that tends to have the most employees working and the smallest crowds. Here are guidelines to consider when planning when to go.
  • Do not go at the very beginning of the month (large crowds of planners and go-getters, or everyone that procrastinated the last month).
  • Do not go at the very end of the month (large crowds of procrastinators).
  • Do not go to the DMV the first hour they are open due to large crowds of ‘stop on the way to workers’. Also, DMV’s tend to have a slow starting pace and many employees are finishing their coffee, finishing conversations, setting up their work area, hanging up coats, purses, umbrellas, or meandering around looking sullen before finally taking their seat and getting to work.
  • Do not go at the end of the day due to large crowds of stop on the way homers. In preparation of the end of the work day the last hour of the day, lines are closed and no more people are allowed to join the ‘waiting que’. Also at this time, half the employees begin wrapping up their day to head home and close their windows bringing the ‘waiting que’ pace from slow to almost stand still.
  • Do not go over your lunch hour. If you think you can be in and out of the DMV in an hour you are sadly mistaken. Not only will you find a long line from all the other people who thought the same thing, you will also have lunches of the employees being rotated through. I am not exactly sure but I would guess that a third to half the employees are gone between the hours of 11-1. This again reduces the line to a snails pace.
  • Do not go on Monday. They are not open. I assume this has something to do with employee retention, like an employee perk, since most normal businesses are open M-F, the DMV is T-F.
  • Wednesdays are risky. People who have the DMV on their to do list might think it is a good time to get it done-mid week. Also, everyone that came on Monday thinking it would be open will most likely come on this day because they were to irritated to come back Tuesday.
  • Fridays are also risky. People who are procrastinators will wait until this day and some employees might be ‘mentally checked out’, again, returning (or maintaining) the ‘waiting que’ to a snails pace.
  • Drivers license and car tag renewals are NOT AT THE SAME LOCATION. I’m sure there is some logical reason for this like…I can’t think of any but I have been at both locations and heard several poor souls come in frustrated and on the verge of tears say they just waited in line for two hours to find out they were in the wrong place.
  • If you have children, do whatever you can at all costs to find someone to watch them for you. At. All. Costs.

So to sum up, the best times to try and keep your trip to the DMV as short as possible is to arrive on Tuesday or Thursday between 8:30-9 and 1:30-2 by yourself with no kids, and nowhere to be anytime soon. No guarantees though.

2. Gather proper documentation. Most likely you will get a nice little reminder in the mail telling you it is time for renewal, or whatever reason you might need to go to the DMV. It might even have a helpful list of items to bring with you. Be wary though, somewhere the writer of this little reminder is getting a good chuckle at how unhelpful and misleading this reminder is.

  • Whatever is listed on the reminder is NOT a complete list. I repeat. Whatever is on the list is NOT a complete list.
  • Try and save yourself time by just bringing everything. Chances are they will ‘absolutely require’ something you didn’t bring and ‘absolutely no exceptions’ can be made, so bring it all. DMV employees are very precise rule followers-like librarians.
  • These are some things to bring to help cover your bases but by no means should be considered a complete list. Current drivers license, social security card, birth certificate, utility bill with your name on it, marriage license (or divorce decree if applicable), passport, second utility bill in case the first one doesn’t qualify for some reason, and the little reminder card they sent you in the mail explaining to them why you are there (apparently looking at the expiration date on your current Driver’s License is not the preferred reason for coming to the DMV. They like you to have an ‘invitation’), and cash. Trust me, just pay cash, no cards, no checks.

3. Go to the DMV. Congratulations! You have picked a day and time, gathered your paperwork and are now ready to go to the DMV. Here are some arrival tips.

  • Often there is a digital line you can get in before you even get there. That is a great start, if it is working that day. It is a high probability that the system will be down but  you won’t know that until you get there and find out you haven’t been in line like you thought. No matter how prepared you think you are, clear your day and have no deadlines, appointments, kids to pick up, or any other commitments or plans for the day. Plan on being there for two to three hours minimum. Bring entertainment for you and anyone else with you for at least 4-6 hours. You will get bored of things that normally entertain you for hours quickly because you feel like you are in a time warp and time has slowed down 10 times its normal pace. You can bring food, but eat it quietly and quickly or you will have to explain to the security guard how you missed the thirty ‘No Food Allowed’ signs posted every three feet, even though you have been watching him eat his ‘lunch’ for the past hour. Other than the ‘No Food’ signs the only other posters you will see are are the ‘Become a Tissue Donor’ posters. This allows you to contemplate giving away your body parts in case of your death while you are there becoming depressed from the lack of color, noise and positive human interaction.
  • When you arrive, find the ‘pre-line’. This is the line where someone is making sure you have all the necessary paperwork before you are aloud to actually get in the real line. Wait in this line for a long long long time. Try not to loose it when some schmuck comes in and thinks he can just jump in real quick and skip the line to ask one little question. Smile calmly at the person in front of you when the pre-line person leaves their position to track down the answer to the schmucks obscure question that he didn’t know, and returns ten minutes later.
  • ***Special note*** To avoid the wrath of fellow DMV visitors, unless your question is “Where is the pre-line?” Get in line to ask your question.
  • When you finally get to the front of the line don’t be discouraged when you are told that you do not have everything you need and will have to leave and go get something that you didn’t know you were supposed to bring then come back and get in the pre-line again. No matter what you read or where you read it, or even if you can produce the paper or website page where you found your ‘what to bring’ list, you will be told it is ‘out of date and no longer accurate’.  See special note for correct exit plan.
  • ***Special note*** I don’t know if it is in their training, or if it is a DMV employee personality trait or just random dumb luck but 99% of DMV employees will only offer information that is specifically asked for, nothing more, nothing less. For example when you are told you don’t have enough redundant paperwork, if you ask the pre-line employee if your social security card will work as identification confirmation and are told ‘Yes’ and then stops speaking and just looks at you, do not assume that means you don’t need anything else. Make sure to follow up with a question such as, “when I go home and get my social security card, what else might I need to get?” Continue asking this question until you are told that is everything. Repeat the entire list of documents back to the employee for verification, twice. Hopefully this will prevent you from being sent home several times.
  • Go home and get what you ‘forgot’. Return to the DMV.

Hopefully on the second try you can make it past the pre-line and get to the actual line. This will depend on how well you were able to use follow up questions to make sure you really have everything. If you are successful you will get a number and get to sit in line instead of stand in line. If not repeat the above steps and try again.

4. Wait in the real line. You will get a number for your place in line. This allows you to sit instead of stand for the remainder of your time in line. Look around and find a spot that looks like a comfy place to spend the next several hours. Despite all previously mentioned ‘No Food Allowed’ signs most of the chairs will have an unknown sticky or gooey substance on it. Hopefully you have wet wipes in your purse, or you can use the handy little reminder sent to you in the mail as a barrier between you and the goo.

  • Once you find your seat you might look around and see some things that get your hopes up that you won’t be there very long. You are wrong but feel free to hope. The number of desks can be deceiving, just because there are 24 employee desks does not mean they are all open. In fact based on my experience rarely if ever are more than a third of the desks open at a time. Even if you get a good estimate of how many people are actually working at the desks, it is not a guarantee that they stay working. Another deception is you will notice the cubicles are lowered for the employee and there is a raised counter for visitors. This also prevents you from seeing if someone is actually sitting at the desk and allows them to sneak away for their 15 minute hourly break. Another false indicator of your length of stay can be the people around you. If there is a digital line, every person ahead of you in the digital line will show up at the last possible second and get in front of you, people will come out of the wood work. This is the case even if the line was ‘not working’ when you tried to get in the digital line, so they just added you at the end. The point is, you will still be there for hours.
  • Another false indicator is your ticket number itself. Lets say your number is R751. Shortly after you sit down they call R746. Naturally you would think that means there are five people ahead of you. You would be wrong though. The next five numbers called have a different letter like O314, T633, N548 and so on. It is several more numbers before R747 is called. Again, you might try and estimate your time left but once again you are wrong. After an hour of waiting and trying to figure out the line/number system with no success R750 is called. A few numbers later R732 makes the cut. This is the digital line jumping all over your hope of getting out of there anytime soon. Until you give up hope and succumb to spending the rest of your day at the DMV, your number will never get called. I hope you took the advice to not bring your kids. If you didn’t-good luck to you. If you did, don’t sit by the person that didn’t because it’s going to get ugly.

5. Finally! After waiting forever and having all your senses dulled by the lack of sound, color, and normal human interaction with the outside world your number is called! You have made it to the beginning of the line. You pick up your stuff and head to the desk that called your number. These next tips are critical, you are not in the clear yet.

  • DMV employees can be very finicky and should be considered a flight risk at all times. They have a very strict set of ever changing rules that they will follow as if being allowed to take their next breath depends on it. Remember that they have been working in this colorless, soundless, dull room for an unknown amount of time and approach with caution. As you are walking up take in the surroundings and the demeanor of the employee as best you can. If there is the same colorlessness and lack of personality in their 5×5 space, be succinct and to the point when speaking, no small talk, have your papers ready to go and give confident but not to confident answers to questions. If there are some personal touches and a little color or flare to their cubicle (like a joke on the wall, or a colorful name tag) you can smile and appear relaxed and attempt small talk if you want.
  • Never ask a question not related to what you are there for. This can irritate the employee and make the process slow way down because they have to ‘go check something’ and take a 15 minute break. Or it will send them off to find the answer because like I said, the rules are ever changing and the people on both sides of them gave a different answer to the same question. Or they will start flooding you with references to certain documents and forms and statutes and you won’t know what they are talking about anyway.
  • If you are having your picture taken, when they tell you to smile be ready to hold that smile for 30 seconds straight without looking like an idiot or your picture will be horrible, and there are NO retakes. If you ask if the picture turned out the employee will always answer yes without even looking.
  • When the 95 year old grandpa next to you fails the vision test seven times before finally ‘passing’ and gets his license, don’t say anything. When the person on the other side of you doesn’t speak English and the employee clearly doesn’t speak whatever language they are speaking and hands him a new drivers license anyway, don’t say anything. When the employee asks if you want a ‘Real ID’ or a ‘plain drivers license’ do not look at them like they are an idiot and say ‘Well I don’t want a fake one.’  (you do want a Real ID BTW-whoever decided to rename it from a Driver’s License to a Real ID is one funny person) AND if you are helped by an employee named Dawn and she asks if you are registered at your current address to vote, do not pause to think or you will be given a speech about taking your US Citizenship rights seriously. If you do any of those things, you will immediately be jinxed and your ‘Real ID’ will get lost in the mail and you will have to come do this whole process over again.

There are many more tips to go with the  actual interaction with the employee but I’ll let you wing it and have a little fun figuring it out on your own. When you are finally done as you turn to leave you will see a stack of paper that looks like it has been stepped on, crumpled and uncrumpled 20 times, soaked in the toilet and air dried then left on the counter for 10 years collecting dust next to the exit door. On closer look you will see that it says, ‘Please rate your experience at the DMV today Survey’ at the top. There is no pen or pencil or collection box but if you want, you can take one of those papers, fill it out and wait in the pre-line to give it back.