– peers suspiciously through plexiglass –
Why didn’t you say that the first time? It’s a different form for after the fifth year. You need to get in that line!
I guess I’ve been lucky–all of my DMV experiences have been relatively benign.
However, the Petty Dictators[sup]TM[/sup] are everywhere, so you have to watch out for them. My first experience at UC Berkeley was a nightmare because of them. There was a nice Catch-22 moment when I realized that after waiting 8 hours in two lines :mad: (4 hours apiece) I was told that I had to solve B to get A, but I had to solve A to get B. I was in remarkable form that day so no one died, but I explained to ‘B’ person that I would remain there, obstructing everyone else until my problem was solved.
It worked. And it’s been my strategy ever since. Heck, my response to Cap. Triage would have been: Get out of my face before I charge you with assault. I will stand here until you solve my problem or show me the legal statute by which you cannot help me. If you wish to remove me from the building, call the police–in fact call this particular officer who warned me to take care of this business within 5 days.
Oh well. The Petty Dictator syndrome is remarkably widespread–how depressing.
I once had the distinct pleasure of providing a service to the workers at the Gaithersburg DMV. I will not divulge which service as it may upset my emloyer and make me easily identifiable. This service required my meeting all of the employees individually.
I can report with some authority that they are just as dim as our experiences might indicate. Our interaction involved them reading documents and asking questions. The nature of the questions left the average DMV worker’s literacy skills deeply in doubt.
Gee, fruitbat, what a truly shocking relevation! 
Beautiful story… check out July Teemings for my horror story with the DMV. [/shameless self promotion] 
It is heartening to know that hell has many offices around the continent.
Glad it all worked out, and excellent writing.
While the Glen Burnie DMV is to be avoided at all costs, the MD DMV in general isn’t always so hot. My brother spent two days at the wonderful Glen Burnie office trying to get them to straighten out the mess they’d made with his car titles. He had an '84 VW Scirocco, but had sold it when he finished with his '81 Scirocco project car. Both cars had been titled in his name, but only the '84 was licensed. When he turned in the tags for the '84 and applied for tags for the '81, he discovered that they’d gotten things all messed up and that they’d deleted/invalidated/marked as sold/whatever the title for the '81, not the '84, making it impossible for him to have a legally licensed car since, according to the DMV, he still owned the car he’d just sold, but not the one that he still had. Two days of arguing, cursing, cajoling, and trying to come up with a bill of sale for a car he’d bought four or five years earlier then ensued. All by their insistence in the bowels of the DMV building. Eventually, they managed to fix things, but having to take two days off work to clean up something the DMV did was ridiculous.