So from the land of the ever-growing "New Fascism"®, I just got back from
doing the "simple" act of renewing my driver license. Instead of just going into
the building and standing in line like I've always done before, I had to make an
appointment months ahead of time, gather together my old license, my
original
social security card, my passport, the title to my car, and my voter registration.
Last night, I was sent a two-page form to fill out and this morning I got an email
with a bar scan that I was told to bring with me. I was also told to not arrive
earlier or later than 30 minutes from my allotted time of 1:15. When I actually
began the process, the woman behind the counter was nice and because it's
such a gawd-awful slog of a process, we started chatting. She said that they
used to have hundreds of people processed each day, but now it takes so much
longer with all of the new rules put in place (basically, to make it as difficult as
possible except for the most diligent of people). I stood at that counter for nearly
half-an-hour while watching others take that long as well. Signatures and more
signatures, two-thumb identity printing, *the* photo, more signatures, and so on.
