We take the day off from work so that we can go to Good Friday services. We have toast for breakfast, then head out.

First we stop at the DMV so that I can renew my license. Apparently I can’t renew it online. I forget that you have to pass through metal detectors, and get bags x-rayed, to get into the DMV. What a pain. Same with the library. Life in DC, I guess. The DMV is especially bad, where I even had to take off my belt and shoes one time. This time I hurriedly gather up wallet and keys and phone and pocket change and everything I can find and stuff it all into my backpack, so as not to set off the metal detector. But of course I do set it off. But seems like everybody is setting it off and the guard is too busy to figure out why so he just waves us through.

I’m pleased that the line to get into the main room isn’t long at all. This is one of those setups they use nowadays, at least in DC and Maryland but I figure it’s pretty standard, where you first check in at a main counter and they make sure you’ve got all your paperwork in order before they give you a number and you wait to get service. My number is C41 and the estimated wait time says one hour and thirty-six minutes. We might not make it.

They also give me a form to fill out. It’s an application for a license and is confusing because I’m here for to renew. It says I need proof of residence. But isn’t my license proof of residence? But it doesn’t say so because this is an application for a license. And there’s also an application for voter registration. Dawn suggests that I use it to change my registration, so as to register as a Democrat, whereas now I’m not registered with any party. DC is very much a Democratic Party town, as in going for Kerry 90% vs. President Bush getting 9% in 2004. That’s right. Only nine percent. We would in fact have only Democrats on the city council except for the fact that that the city charter requires two members be from a different party. Yup, that’s right. Congress forces on us an affirmative action quota for Republicans.

So anyway pretty much local elections are decided by the race in the Democratic primary in September, not the general election in November. So Dawn tells me that, as much as I yack about politics, I should register as a Democrat. But I’m not a Democrat. Maybe I’ll register as a Green.

And Dawn thought that we’d be in and out of the DMV in twenty minutes, having come on a work day and not a Saturday. But that 1:36 estimate proves to be pretty much true. And we have to bail after an hour and a half because we have to get to church. We give our number to the young woman sitting next to us, who’s got like A60-something.