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Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass., Alicia Blaisdell-Bannon column: License to think
Jun 21, 2009 (Cape Cod Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
You can do a lot of thinking in two hours at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
First, you think about whether you really need a driver's license. Maybe you could take a bus to work. Walk to the library.
Churn your own butter.
Then you wonder if you could get enough money from the people right there, slumped on benches and leaning against walls and generally looking like actors auditioning for "The Night of the Living Dead," to pay to bring in one extra person to work the license-renewal lines.
Because you get it about budget-trimming and its evil twin, staff reductions. Oh yes, you definitely get it. But, based on the notion that time is money, you think maybe everyone assembled here in this Plymouth office might be willing to pony up what an hour or two of their time is worth.
You look around at your fellow zombies, mole people and ghouls.
Maybe not.
After 45 minutes or so, you remember you have a book in your car, so you run out to retrieve it -- as if, despite the fact that they are "Now Serving B245" and you are "B290," you will miss your chance and have to go to the end of the line.
Except there is no line, which is nice. You think Ellis Island probably would have been more efficient if they had employed this delicatessen-like number-calling system.
You think about Ellis Island.
Would your people have come to this country if they knew that, generations later, a hapless descendant would be sitting in an office, waiting to pay $40 for the privilege of continuing to drive in a state where red lights are considered suggestions?
A slot opens up on a wooden bench with a back that seems to be at an angle just slightly to the acute side of 90 degrees. You begin to read your book, looking up occasionally to watch people who don't have books, and you wonder, how do they wait two hours without something to read? Is this how psychopaths are created?
You think, if one of them snaps, where is the nearest exit? You are just beginning to imagine leaping over the gnome sitting next to you when you hear, "Now Serving B290."
And you think: Did I leave my license in the car?
Alicia Blaisdell-Bannon can be reached at 508-862-1192 or at ablaisdell-bannon@capecodonline.com. Watch "Homefront" at 9:30 a.m. Mondays and 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays on Channel 17 in the Mid-Cape area. Check your cable-access station for program times in your area.
To see more of the Cape Cod Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.capecodonline.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax
to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave.,
Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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