That stands for the Tennessee Department of Safety, and they are in charge of all things license-related: driver’s license, gun license, license plates, etc. I tortured the poor baby (and myself) by dragging her to not one, but two, of these offices on Friday. Why two? Because the first one I went to is closed on Fridays. For real. And none of the offices are open on Saturday. So in the great state of TN, you must take time off through the week to suffer at the hands of this laughably incompetent arm of state government.
Several weeks ago, I went to the first office to get my TN driver’s license. I’m really weird and militant about addressing such details when I move to a new state or address. My driver’s license must match the address on my checks. The license plates? I don’t care. They’re too expensive to change until they’re due. This is the eighth state I’ve lived in, and I have not obtained a driver’s license in all of them; sometimes you just know it’s not gonna work out. Alabama and Nevada come to mind. In Nevada, they’re very hardcore about those tags. A cop used to patrol my apartment complex and issue warning tickets to anyone with out of state plates. By the time my notice appeared on the windshield, I knew I was getting out of Reno, and fast. I called the officer who issued the ticket and told her I was moving, and she actually cut me some slack.
ANYHOO, my first attempt several weeks ago was thwarted by a crude handwritten sign on the door of the TDOS: “Having computer problems. Expect long wait.” Fantastic. The baby and I walk in, wait to even get a number, and are informed that the wait is an hour and a half. No way, dude. She’ll need a nap before then, and I simply don’t have that kind of patience. The employees tried to convince me that the wait wasn’t long at all. Ha! Turns out the bastards were right.
At office #2 on Friday, it took me two hours to wait, pay the $19.50 for the new license, and have my picture taken. No test or anything. When I asked how much it would cost, the gal told me between $12.50 and $26.50, I half breathed a sigh of relief because I had a whopping $28 in cash, and half wondered, huh, how is the price actually determined? Whatever, I got the damned license, and had I known how cheap they looked, I would have made one at home. Using MS Word, not something fancy like Photoshop, that’s how ridiculous this license looks.
To further complicate matters, there is no consistency in office hours or forms of payment. How fun for the consumer. Office #1 accepted credit cards and is closed every Friday. Office #2 is closed every Monday and only accepts checks or cash.
The funniest part of this whole field trip is that every license bureau in Chicago is more efficient, and half of those people don’t even speak English. Add this to the pile of Things I Should Organize a Protest About But Won’t.
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