Today I went for a very eventful personal appointment. When I moved here in 2020, I went about getting a California drivers license, which was not an easy feat in the midst of COVID. I finally got an appointment in the Temecula office of California DMV (Kim had to go all the way to Hemet to get her’s) once the DMV felt it was safe to reopen their offices to the public and re-expose their employees to the viral strains running rampant across the world. At that session, it was fairly easy for me to get my California license with the help of surrendering my New York license. The one thing I had to do was take a routine eye exam. I had never done this before without glasses since my eyes magically corrected themselves when I was about 60, but my New York license had corrective lenses required and I never bothered to change that. Therefore, I was pleased when I came through the California DMV eye exam in 2020 with flying colors and for the first time in my life could drive anywhere and everywhere without glasses. It so happens that my license renewal has come almost five years from the date of my prior California license issuance. The almost pertains to the fact that it expires on January 30th since that is my 71st birthday. California, like most other states put special restrictions on drivers license renewals on people over 70. they have to physically go into a DMV office and cannot renew online like the regular folks do.
We all know about and like joking about how antiquated and inefficient the DMV offices of the world are. They are the bureaucratic butt of every joke about government procedure. The truth is that I have not found that at all to be the case here in California and my 2020 session seemed very efficient and quick and I loved the outcome of the eye test and even the picture, in which I think I look better than most pictures I take. I have been dreading my drivers license renewal because I, like everyone, still don’t like going to the DMV, but also because I have heard horror stories of people not passing written tests (that almost happened to Kim in 2020) and then the rigors of another eye exam which may or may not go as easily as the one did five years ago. Nevertheless, I started the pre-application process online, including downloading a copy of my passport and several forms of residency evidence (SDGE bill, Valley Center Water bill, Mortgage Statement, San Diego County tax bill, etc.) and filled out all the routine questions. Then I made an appointment at the DMV. I naturally found that I had waited too long (I started this on January 5th) and the nearby DMV offices were fully booked out into February, after my license expired. I finally found an appointment in Oceanside for today, January 14th and I snatched it up. Since they said it would take two weeks to get the new license in the mail, I figured I just made it in time.
I purposefully went early to Oceanside and was pleasantly surprised that the lines were not outrageously long and there seemed to be a fairly quick disposition of people waiting for service. Naturally, I waited in the line for people with appointments. When I got up to the triage officer, he told me I didn’t actually have an appointment after all and unless I could produce a confirmatory email, I didn’t have one. While I was looking on my phone, he very nicely just gave me a queue number (G-46) and given that the board showed that they were serving G-36 at that moment, that seemed like an OK outcome for me. I was still annoyed about the appointment I think I had, but as I watched the numbers count down rather quickly, it occurred to me that perhaps I had made too much about getting an appointment in the first place. I had also tried hard to follow the DMV procedure online to upload all the documents that they ask of you for a renewal. I downloaded a copy of my passport, and then to prove residency, as instructed on the website, I downloaded a recent SDGE bill, a recent Valley Center Water Authority bill, a Chase mortgage statement and a San Diego County Tax bill. When I was called up to the counter by virtue of my number getting called, the nice woman behind the window told me she didn’t need any of the documents I had downloaded and of which I brought copies as back-up and that she only needed my old license to proceed.
The part of the process that most concerned me, the eye exam came next. She started by asking me to read a line on a chart hanging from the ceiling behind her. I did it perfectly with both eyes and with my left eye, but when it was turn for my right eye only, I had to hem and haw a lot. She told me to try using the machine, so I went through the same process with both eyes, then the left eye only and when it was time for the right eye only I was able to do well enough to pass. She said my right eye was weaker than my left (which I already knew), but that I had passed. Then it was just a matter of paying $55 with a credit card and then verifying some basic personal information. The last step with her was for her to record my right thump print on a small pad reader. That proved harder than I had anticipated. It seems that based on research, fingerprints do tend to become less pronounced with age, though this process happens gradually and varies between individuals. This occurs due to several factors. There is the natural wear and tear on the skin over decades of use and gradual loss of collagen and elastin in the skin, which reduces the depth and definition of friction ridges. Changes in skin moisture and texture that come with aging and reduced natural oil production in the skin all factor in. Some occupations can accelerate this process of deterioration, particularly work involving frequent contact with chemicals or abrasive materials. Musicians who play string instruments, for instance, often experience more pronounced wearing of fingerprints on their playing fingers. So, for whatever reason, this fingerprint scanner had more than a normal amount of difficulty reading my thumb print. However, I am led to believe that the basic pattern of my fingerprints remains stable throughout life and it’s just the depth and clarity that may have diminished, so I doubt it will become a problem for me once it finally did get recorded.
Then the woman gave me a printed copy of a temporary license that she said would carry me through with lots of leeway until my new license arrived (I also still had my old one which is goof until January 30th). This told me that like the appointment worries, I didn’t need to worry about the timing between testing and receipt of the physical permanent license as I was led to believe from the website. The final step was getting my new photo. To do that I had to give another woman my temporary license, had to sign an electronic signature pad and had to let her scan my thump print. Damn, that thumb problem was already a problem and it took a few repeated scans of my thumb to get it to register. It finally worked, so I was finished with the DMV, all in less than 20 minutes. It’s nice to know that my eyes have what it takes to be good for another five years even if my right thumb needs some work. I will be interested in five years when I am 76 what this process will all be like. I’m guessing that I will change more than the DMV will.
Well done Rich 😊