I found myself in the Missouri DMV for the third time in two days. A dull ache in the back of my head. My midsection didn't feel all that great either.
Car inspection, trip to the court house. Quite an ordeal. I held the number 24.
“19!”
I looked up and saw Condiment Man's old arch-nemesis, the Waster. Dressed as pristine as he ever had, in a suit worth more than my life's earnings thusfar. A louie vuitton
hairpiece sat atop his head. I hadn't the slightest that they made such a thing, but it was covered with those trademark LVs conveyed by a slightly different shade of dark brown.
“I've been here two and a half hours and it's your fault, you voted for him,” said a largish 50 something male. “So you can't complain.”
The Waster smiled and picked up, the Wall Street Journal from atop his attache case. He unfolded it and read.
“That draft dodger made a mess of things,” continued the pundit. Something in his tone of voice made me realize I had to use the restroom. But not badly.
“33!”
I looked around to determine how that number had the audacity to be called. The answer quickly dawned on me, license and tag had separate numbers. 33 was the number for license, I was waiting for tag 24, pundit was waiting for license 37. Ten minutes later 20 was called and I began to understand the pace of things.
Twenty five minutes passed.
37 and 21 were called by the two employees.
The pundit exclaimed “finally!”
My eyes drifted to the top of the Waster's case. There sat the number 28. My attention was then stolen by the pundit.
“My birth certificate or passport! I waited 3 hours!”
“We have signs posted for that reason, sir.” The female employee then pointed to the signs.
“Well fine! Perhaps my purple heart would be enough!”
All parties waiting exchanged sour looks, except for the Waster. Again the tone of this voice hit a chord within me. I could wait no longer. I dashed off to the restroom.
When I returned not three minutes later, I saw the Waster was being helped. I dashed to my seat and picked up my number. When I flipped it over, I found it'd been replaced by a similarly sized note card which read: “my apologies.”
I looked around for 28, nowhere to be seen.
I walked to the front, hand trembling as it snatched a new number, 11. As I did, the Waster finished and looked to me. His head cocked to the side, his shoulders raised, his hands then completed the full body shrug, as a 'hmph' came out from his closed mouth. He then bent down, and picked up attache case. Tucked his new license plate under his arm and let out a little laugh. He stood, shook his head a little, laughed a bit louder. His laughter grew in both volume and maniacalness as he left the DMV.
I sunk into my seat, clutching my 11 close to my heart. As my defeat sunk in, the pundit walked in, purple heart in hand, grabbing the number 58.
“I'll show that draft dodger.”
Then the completeness of my defeat was felt.
back to: CD
Central Just
by July