Dearest Rachel –
You might recall how last week, when I was struggling (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) to keep from catching whatever it was that Daniel had been dealing with since before the weekend began, I was also trying to remember about a commitment I thought I remembered making, but was unable to recall the specifics of, in order to honor it. I think at the time, I offered to fill you in on the details if they were to return to me, but couldn’t offer any guarantees at the time; you know that my shaky memory is a recurring theme throughout these letters to you, after all.
Well, the answer has returned, astonishing as that may sound. In fact, it came to me late last week, but given the circumstances, it went unaddressed at the time. Yesterday, however, offered a chance to issue a rain check on the original commitment, so it seems like a good time to explain what had been meant to be done last week – and why it couldn’t be accomplished, either then or now, in fact.
You see, with another birthday passing him by, Daniel realized that his driving license had expired. Considering how rarely he drives (and how little, when he does), this hasn’t been much of an issue, but every so often, he gets a bug up his backside to do something about it. So the commitment from last week was to take him to the DMV (because, after all, he couldn’t drive himself on an expired license), and get the thing renewed. There were to be a couple other stops along the way – after all, once one is out and about, one might as well make a trip out of it – but that was the main one to take care of. And for some reason, it completely slipped my mind as of last Monday.
Not that it would have been advisable to try last week, in any event. Daniel was already dealing with his cold before the weekend began – he even did the responsible thing by staying home from the Thursday night dinner ritual because of it – and wasn’t really in any shape to head anywhere in public on Monday. Meanwhile, I was in denial regarding whether the cold had caught up with me or not – by the following day, it was obvious that I should not have made an appearance at the ‘office’ that day – so it wouldn’t have been the best idea to attempt this errand even if I had remembered about it at the time.
And it’s not as if Daniel’s completely out of the woods even now (nor I, for that matter – I’d say I was probably at 95%, but that might be a case of giving myself too much benefit of the doubt. I’d been in such bad shape for a day or two that whatever recovery I’ve made seems almost too good); he’s still dealing with the same shallow cough he’s had for a week and a half. Lars tells me that the current thing that’s making its way around the area these days appears to be hitting younger people harder than us older folks, but I still maintain that it’s another example of how the three of us would get the same amount of cold for different lengths of time. If you were still here, you’d probably be dealing with symptoms for the entire length of our upcoming trip, as well.
Be that as it may, as long as we’d recovered most of our health, and enough of our memory, it was agreed that we ought to hit the DMV yesterday – although Daniel insisted on taking his usual Monday bath beforehand. This meant that I’d be spending most of the afternoon at the ‘office,’ but at least there wasn’t any danger of passing what we’d had to the folks, as they’d already caught it themselves –most likely from my appearance there the previous Monday. Whoops. Well, with the damage already having been done, it wasn’t as if they could catch that much more of my cold (and I didn’t have as much to give them at this point), and so I managed to occupy myself for a few hours there.
The only concern I had was whether the DMV would even be open by the time Daniel was done with his bath – and, for that matter, if the line would be prohibitively long by the time we arrived. He was done by around three in the afternoon, leaving us only a couple of hours to get there before it closed, and as you know, the nearest one is in the corner of a strip mall that’s lacking other nearby storefronts, but the parking lot in that corner was packed dishearteningly full. We’d likely be waiting for a while for our number to be called, if the crowd was any indication.
However, the security guard at the door proved to be a game changer. As we walked in, he asked whether we had an appointment; we acknowledged that we did not, but assumed that there was room for walk-ins. He directed us to the information kiosk in the middle of the lobby, where the clerk posed the same question as the guard did.
It would seem that an appointment is a requirement in order to get anything done here. In fairness, this probably cuts down on overall wait time, since everyone shows up at their appointed hour and things proceed from there, but that meant that we were not going to get anything taken care of here today. We’d wasted our trip out here.
Well… not entirely wasted. Sure, the main point of our trip wasn’t going to be happening, but since we’d planned on a few other stops, those could be taken care of. Logan has been asking for a wireless booster for the house, and Daniel needs a new computer (the one you might remember has been bent backwards a few too many times – and, at over five years old, it could stand to be replaced in any event). We also picked up a few groceries, as well as an early dinner – for which we found ourselves placing our order with our first AI clerk, who would transcribe everything we said to her, even if it wasn’t part of the order itself. We wound up with a bit more in our bag – and a bit less in my wallet – than we’d planned, but otherwise, it wasn’t a bad experience, apart from the usual pressure of trying to determine what we wanted while being aware of others behind us.
So while we couldn’t finish the job we set out to do yesterday, sometimes that’s just how life is. I’ve left the contact information with Daniel; if he feels the need to get this taken care of, he can make the arrangements online with the DMV, and we can try again. It’ll probably be after we get back from our trip, but we’ll see how it goes. In either case, I’d appreciate if you’d keep an eye on us, honey, and wish us luck. I suspect that we’re going to be needing it.
Letters to Rachel 