A MICHIGANDER AT LAST

By Mary Beth Crain

I guess congratulations are in order, because I’m celebrating a big moment in my life. Finally, after living here for a year and a half, I am officially a Michigander.

Even though I moved here from L.A. in June of 2006, I still kept a California address and my California license plates until a few weeks ago. There were a number of reasons I put off getting Michiganized. One was that I was waiting until I bought a house and had a permanent residence, so that I didn’t have to go explaining why the address on my license wasn’t the correct one. Another was that a Michigan license was the official proof that I was no longer an Angeleno, an identity crisis that I couldn’t quite yet admit. And the third was post-traumatic shock, brought on by repeated visits to the closest place to hell on earth, the Los Angeles DMV.

You’ve seen those classic pictures of the crowds of people dancing in the streets and cheering the headlines that blared the news about V-E Day? The ones where everybody’s packed in like sardines and nobody can breathe? Well, that’s about what most of the DMV’s in Los Angeles are like—on a slow day. Except for one difference: those 1945 street crowds were delirious with joy. Going to the L.A. DMV, on the other hand, is about as much fun as taking a vacation in Baghdad. You’re never quite sure if you’re going to come out alive.

I remember the time I was still young and naive and figured I could just waltz into the DMV to renew my license. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at around 10 a.m. to find a line around the building. Everyone in it looked beaten down and totally resigned to their fate, like victims on their way in to the concentration camps. I went inside to inquire at the info desk how long the wait would be. The woman behind the counter burst out laughing.

“Well, let’s just say that by the time we call your number, you’ll be eligible for Medicare!” she cackled.

Great. They say that in Los Angeles, everybody’s either an actor or a stand-up comic waiting to be discovered. But this was ridiculous! There was nothing, absolutely nothing, funny about spending half your life waiting to renew your driver’s license, a brain dead action that should, by all the normal laws of nature, never have taken more than five minutes.

“You can always make an appointment,” the info lady tried being helpful. “That’s a lot quicker.”

“OK,” I said. “Can I do that now?”

“Sure. Just get in that line.” She pointed to a line that went halfway around the perimeter of the room.

“Isn’t there a faster way just to make an appointment?” I pleaded.

“Well, you can call this number,” she said, handing me the dreaded California DMV 800 number.

So, I went home and dialed the Number That Never Gets Answered by a Human Voice. After going through numerous mechanically-announced options, I got the recording everybody lives in fear of: “Please stay on the line. Your call will be answered in approximately two weeks…”

Eventually I got an appointment for the following month. When I arrived at the DMV, I had to sign in. I was given a number and told to “sit over there,” in a holding tank that looked like steerage in one of those immigrant ships headed to Ellis Island at the turn of the century. I was probably one of three Caucasians present. Various tongues flew by me—Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Filipino…Did you know that at last count, 126 languages were spoken in the Los Angeles Unified School District? Makes ya really want to move to L.A. to become a teacher, doesn’t it?

Now you people in Oceana County are probably used to a DMV with a single desk and no more than two service stations. At the L.A. DMV, there are approximately 25 stations, resembling the check-out lines at Meijer. So, my wait time was actually fairly short. When my number was called, I was herded over to Station 16. I figured all I had to do was pay my money and get my license.

“Step over there to get your picture taken,” the clerk pointed to the little execution area where you stand in front of a camera pointed at you like a tiny machine gun. Picture taken? Oh my God. I had completely forgotten. And this was the day I hadn’t washed my hair, or put on any makeup. I mean, who gets fancy to go to the Gulag?

Well, as you can guess, the photo was just lovely. I looked like they’d just dragged me out of bed. That’s what I had to live with on my ID for the next four years.

So, imagine my surprise when I finally screwed up enough courage to venture in to the DMV in Hart and was greeted by no line and a friendly gal who got me in and out in under five minutes. Talk about shock and awe!

Frankly, it feels kind of nice to be a Michigander. Although I’m hoping that’s not like a Proper Gander. You know, that satirical James Thurber fable, “The Very Proper Gander,” about a gander in a barnyard who was quite fastidious and always dressed to the nines. “There goes a very proper gander,” said a pig. Well, by the time it traveled around, the pig’s comment had gotten twisted and turned into something about propaganda, and before you know it, the gander was labeled a commie and forced to flee the barnyard.

Hopefully a Michigander is something a little less incendiary.