What is the task you dread most? And what is the place, above all, you want to avoid?
For some people, it’s going to a doctor or a dentist. For others it might be going to work for a supervisor who treats you like dirt. Or it might be going to an IRS office when summoned for an audit.
For me, near the top of that list is going to the DMV.
Yes, a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles fills me with dread—enduring a long wait, feeling like I’m in a herd being moved along (hopefully not to my slaughter), then being faced with a bunch of paperwork and a lot of questions.
Be warned. If you don’t have a “REAL ID” and you want to fly, you’ll have to go to the DMV starting today. May 7 is the day the REAL ID Act, originally passed by Congress in 2005, is enforced.
Besides dread in the DMV office, I feel empathy for the dozens and dozens of people who have trudged there to take care of some issue like renewing their vehicle registration, transferring a vehicle title, taking a test, etc., etc., etc.
I also feel empathy for the people behind the counter, dealing with one person after another who has problems, feels confused or is irritated by what they believe is some DMV injustice done to them.
I try my best to avoid going to the DMV. The last time I went, before I trudged there about a month ago, was before COVID, to take a computerized test on the rules of the road to renew my license.
In the last few years, the California DMV has made it a little easier to do things online without appearing in person at a DMV office.
However, the other day I had no choice but to visit the DMV office in person to apply for a REAL ID. Not that I didn’t try to avoid it. I went to the DMV website and filled out a lot of forms online and uploaded several required documents.
I thought I was done until I saw, sadly, on my computer screen near the end that I still needed to make an appointment with my local DMV and go there IN PERSON. On seeing this, I started to get the shakes, but I knew I had no choice.
Yes, I had to get a Real ID because I would be flying to southern California to see my grandson Alec graduate from high school in Chula Vista.
I kept asking myself “Why do I have to have a REAL ID?” Then I blurted, “Get real. Was my current driver’s license somehow UNREAL?”
I did a little exploration on the internet. On the Department of Homeland Security website I read, “The REAL ID Act enacted the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that the Federal Government ‘set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver’s licenses.’”
Reading on, I saw that I would need a REAL ID to do the following: “Accessing certain federal facilities, boarding federally regulated commercial aircraft or entering nuclear power plants.”
Well, I wasn’t planning on entering a nuclear power plant, but I was planning on using federally regulated commercial aircraft.
I also read that the REAL ID Act was passed soon after the 9/11 Commission recommended in 2004 that the federal government should establish national standards for identification for airplane passengers.
However, implementation of the act was delayed several times, especially when COVID hit. Finally, a drop-dead deadline was set for May 7, 2025, a mere 20 years after the original act was passed.
All of that information didn’t help my disposition when I stood in line at the Los Banos DMV about a month ago. The place was packed with about 50 people waiting. And although I had an appointment for 2:10 and arrived at 2:09, I still had to wait.
First, I had to check in with the one person who checks in everyone, whether they have an appointment or not. She already looked exhausted. When it was my turn, she treated me with courtesy, confirming that I indeed had an appointment, although I would have to wait until my number, F10, which she wrote on a document she gave me, was called.
I waited for what seemed to be a long time until eventually F10 popped up on a screen. Then I went to another window and talked with another patient and exhausted woman. She asked to see the documents needed to apply for a REAL ID.
“But, ma’am,” I said, “I already uploaded all of them onto the website as directed.”
“Sir,” she said, “I don’t see them in the system.”
Fortunately, I expected something like this and brought the same documents with me that I had uploaded: an official birth certificate and two documents to verify my address — my PG&E and water bills.
She thanked me, uploaded them, and a few minutes later said I was done—with her. But I still had to go to another part of the building to get a photo taken. After waiting in another line some more, another friendly lady took my photo.
Now all I had to do was to wait for my REAL ID to come in the mail. I had to have that card to fly; proof I had completed the application was not enough.
About three weeks later my REAL ID came. And, as promised, it had a graphic of a bear in the upper right-hand corner. Finally, I could fly.
By the way, if any of my readers wonder why “REAL” in REAL ID is in all caps, there is no reason given. It just is.
Like a lot of things in life, as a paraphrase from a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson puts it, “Ours in not to reason why. Our is but to do or die.”
John Spevak’s email is john.spevak@gmail.com.
