Humanity at the DMV

a most unlikely place to restore one’s faith

When you move across state lines, there is a bunch of stuff you need to do to get your new household up and running. You need to change your mailing address on a bazillion things. And believe me, you are bound to forget a few. You need to cancel stuff in one place and set them up in another. A former customer of Dominion, I now make monthly payments to Duke. You need to unsubscribe to services you did not even remember you had. And then you need to resubscribe to services you should not have cancelled. And of course, you need to register to vote, transfer the registration on your car, and get a new Drivers License.

For the latter, I checked the NCDMV website to figure out what was required.

• NC auto insurance. Check.

• Social Security Card. Check.

• Two pieces of mail with new address. Check.

• Current Drivers License. Check.

Long lines at the DMV know no regional or state boundaries. I was told the two offices in Winston-Salem were perennially backed up. It’s better to head out of the city and go to an office in one of the smaller towns. I went to Yadkinville.

Apple Maps led me to the front door of a somewhat dilapidated metal temporary building. This has got to be wrong. I looked around for something larger, something more solid, maybe something built out of bricks. But the GPS was right, and I was wrong.

I walked into the tiny waiting room. About a dozen customers were seated in 1960’s style plastic bucket chairs. Oddly though, very 2024, you had to scan a QR code to check in. Time moves slowly at the DMV as if slowed down by some invisible gravitational force. The electronic queue board seems frozen in time. All of us customers, stare at it anyway, hoping to see our number pop up and win the golden ticket.

We are an odd little community, our automotive needs and schedules having brought us together. There is an Amish young woman waiting silently by herself to take her driver’s test, two moms with two adolescent boys waiting to do the same, a suburban style husband in golf attire, an elderly gentleman in dirty dungarees, and a middle-aged woman dressed for winter in summer like weather, terrified of the yellow jacket that has invaded our space. (I lend her a piece of my mail to swat it with.)

The DMV supervisor cheerfully steps out from the back to give us all a pep talk. “Stand up and do some stretches, sorry for the wait, we’ll be with you shortly.”

And wherever two or three are gathered, conversation breaks out, right?

“How long have you been here?” is the ice breaker, of course. “An hour.” “Half an hour.” “I came last week, but there was a line around the block.” “I’ve totally lost track of time.” Folks anxiously look at their watches concerned they will be late for wherever they need to be next. But no one dare leave and give up their place in the queue.

The DMV supervisor emerges once again from the back. “Does anyone have five dollars?” he asks our little crowd. That’s an odd question, why? It seems the customer currently sitting at his desk, renewing her commercial Drivers License, is five dollars short of paying the total fee. Myself and one of the moms both reach into our wallets and find a fiver. But the supervisor refuses to take it from us and insists that a gentleman should step up to help this damsel in distress. “Come on, men, this lady is a school bus driver. She drives YOUR kids safely to school. Please, help her out so she won’t have to come back.” The suburban guy belatedly stands up and hands over the cash. The room lets out an audible sigh of satisfaction.

The suburban guy sits back down and begins to dispel the mysteries of debit cards and credit unions for the elderly gentleman in the dirty dungarees. “You’ve been here the longest, right? Let’s check with the powers that be and make sure they haven’t forgotten you.” The elderly gentleman is finally and graciously ushered into the back.

Meanwhile the waiting room is bubbling with adolescent excitement, as all three teenagers pass their tests and walk out with a valid Drivers License. Their adoring fans, meaning all of us seated in the bucket chairs, cheer them on as if they were our own.

A text pops up on my phone letting me know that it is finally my turn. Whew! At long last, sometime later today I too will get to go home with a real live valid NC Drivers License.

This little NCDMV was a revelation to me. When I set out to take care of this administrative errand, I fully expected to run into rude civil servants and tedious red tape. Instead, I discovered that even in purgatory, even in-the-midst of bureaucracy, that we can find ourselves in good company, that we can find community in ANY situation. In the breach, strangers can become the best of friends.

God bless Yadkinville. I found humanity at the DMV.

P.S. This post first appeared on Wordpress U&U back in September. Reposting here to encourage a friend who moved here recently to get his NC license too!