DMV torture

Wednesday morning we picked up the car share car and the grandparents and headed to Glenwood Springs to take the learner's permit test.

We arrived at the DMV a few minutes after the 9 am opening time. They were serving number 8 and we got number 26.

Hmmmm.

There were two clerks but one kept leaving to administer scheduled driving tests. There was also an assistant whose job was to answer the phone so the clerks didn't have to but she kept disappearing on little, meaningless errands.

The numbers increased agonizingly slowly.

Our number was finally called at 11:30 am. But only after number 30 jumped the line.

I saw an elderly woman sitting near us and noticed that she was holding number 230. All of the ticket numbers were 3 digit numbers starting with a 2. The number being served display (directly above Rachel's head in the picture) was a 2 digit display.

Obviously, we were going by the last two numbers on our ticket.

Well, I guess this wasn't obvious to everyone.

The clerk called number 23. Two people got up and approached the counter, one being the woman I knew to be holding number 230. I then sat and watched for 20 plus minutes while the clerk helped first the gentleman holding ticket 23 and next the elderly woman who decided that since zero is null, she must have been holding ticket number 23.

I felt that the clerk should have explained to the elderly woman that she was jumping the line. Clearly, the clerk didn't agree. No skin off her nose who she helps next.

And I was probably the only person in the room who knew.

It was particularly tortuous for my parents who hail from Illinois. Illinois' DMV used to be as inefficient as Colorado's. That is until there were a series of well-publicized scandals revolving around fraud and graft in the Illinois DMV. Illinois' current Secretary of State, Jesse White, has done a terrific job of reforming his department and my mother just gushes about how efficient the Driver's License offices are now.

I guess Colorado needs a scandal.

But Rachel passed her test and is now the proud possessor of a learner's permit.

She has yet to drive a car on the street. We thought about having her drive to work on Thursday morning but decided it was not a stellar idea to have her first street driving experience occur on Main Street.