You are currently browsing the daily archive for May 29th, 2009.
Because I’m such an insane little rule-follower, one of the very first things I did on moving to Virginia was to head straight to the DMV for a new license and car tags.
First, they wouldn’t give it to me because I was a security risk. My license was less than 60 days old, they said, helpfully after I’d waited an hour and a half to be called. It was thus considered invalid in the Commonwealth. Yes, okay, the card itself was only about a month old. My birthday is in September, it had just been renewed, and I moved here the first week of October. But I got the actual license the day I turned 16; doesn’t that count for anything? Apparently not.
Because my dad is a badass, we went back the next day and hoped for a new person. We got a little grandma who either (a) didn’t know the 60 day security rule or (b) didn’t care. I’m inclined to vote for (b) at this point, since she also let my dad sign title to the car over to me completely without so much as checking his ID, which is oh so terribly illegal. (He could have been anyone!). She let me take my picture three times until I was satisfied with it, though, which was enough of a perk that I overlooked it.
Result: very cute driver’s license. My smile is perfect, my hair is adorable; I even look really tan, which is kind of amazing seeing as I’d spent the entire summer in my parent’s basement being abused by bar prep.
That card expires on my 30th birthday. Many, many things will die on that day, I fear, but the picture is of most concern to me at present.
Reading the Post on the train home last night, I read this article: Virginia is banning smiles in all DMV photos. Effective now. Driver’s license = mugshot. Forget the lovers. Virginia is for convicts!
I sped straight to the macbook and wasted an inordinate amount of time last night posing “with a neutral face” in front of photobooth. I have to say I’m not very pleased with the results.
Suddenly, the next three years seem like the last precious days of my free-wheeling youth. Thanks, Virginia. Thanks a lot.
