Nobody likes their driver’s license
photo; I get that. But still we are
asked to show these IDs at banks, stores, and airports, and we do it without
much angst because we’re all in the same boat.
Until now. I have jumped overboard, my friends. Over into the sea of INSANELY HIDEOUS
PHOTOGRAPHY. For the first time ever, I am considering
paying the extra fee for a new picture, or getting a separate ID entirely. I guarantee you cannot beat this story.
Normally the California Department
of Motor Vehicles (DMV) mails me my new license every year three years, for
being an exemplary driver. What do they
know? But they do it. Years go by.
Finally I have exceeded not the speed limit, but the time limit, and
they write to say I must re-take the vision test.
No biggie. My hair is up in a messy bun after a morning
of housework, and I’m not wearing any
makeup except for some lip gloss. I’ve thrown
on an old T-shirt and some jeans, but since it’s only a vision test and thumb
print, I’m not worried. I grab my daughter, Nicole, and we zip over to the local
DMV.
Wisely, I have made an appointment. This saves the local news from having to
cover a mass homicide. CRAZED MOTHER OF
FOUR TAKES OUT 42 CITIZENS AT LOCAL DMV.
I am not good at waiting two hours in government offices.
Sure enough, I’m called right up to Window 15 for my vision
test. I pass with flying colors. And
then, in a horrible twist of fate, the gruff woman behind the counter tells me
I have to get a new picture!
“No, no,” I explain.
“The letter just said vision and fingerprinting.”
“It also said a photograph,” she argues, and even though she
has not read the same letter I have received, I do recall a bit of fine print
at the bottom that I skimmed, so I decide not to wage a war over this.
I take my hair out of the bun and shake it loose. It looks worse. I also have an immediate hot
flash that leaves my skin as shiny as if I had smeared it with Vaseline. (Why can’t there be cold flashes?) Nicole frowns; she is better than any mirror. The woman snaps my picture and I step away
for the next impatient person to have their turn at a mug shot. Nicole says, “You have a piece of chocolate
on your lips.”
What? I reach up to
pull it off and it isn’t chocolate at all, but a BIG BLACK GNAT that has flown
into my lip gloss, choked on it and died.
Now I realize that my new photo is going to look like a drenched, squinty mole
who has just gorged on a wad of greasy cheese, with hair looking like I’ve got
my toes in a light socket and am being electrocuted, and with a BUG stuck to my
lips!
“I am shredding that
thing the second it arrives,” I say to St. Bob after I get home. “I’ll have to call and reschedule another
picture or something.” And here’s where he tells me it’ll cost big bucks and
they’ll still probably use the same photo.
Sure enough, the license arrives in
the mail and looks even worse than I had imagined. Picture the same electrocuted mole wearing
the fright wig, shiny face filling the frame, and a big black smudge on its
lips, like a mug shot of a drunk who chews tobacco and can’t keep from drooling.
Naturally my family is no help. They call me “Bugsy,” they suggest other
creatures that could get mired in my lipstick, they compliment my “gnatty”
attire. Finally they email me the poster
of Jodie Foster with a butterfly on her lips from the movie, The Silence of the
Lambs, and wonder why I didn’t choose that insect instead.
And no, I am not going to post my photo here, you’ll just
have to imagine it. And be grateful, at
last, that your photo is infinitely better.
This true story worked its way into
my book, “Funeral Potatoes, The Novel,” which you can buy here: http://amzn.to/15OZcgq
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