In which Joanna renews her driver's license...
In Pennsylvania you are required to renew your driver's license every four years, and unlike in some other states you have to get a new picture taken for your license each time. There is a two step process for the renewal: 1) When you get the renewal notice, pay your fee, and receive a camera card back in the mail, and, 2) Go have your picture taken at a PennDOT center to have the actual card issued. And in Pennsylvania your license expires the day after your birthday in the given year.
I received my renewal in April and had long since paid my money and gotten my camera card in the mail. And since the last time I went to get my picture taken for my license, it was all of a five minute procedure at a suburban office - literally, no waiting - I wasn't worried or in a hurry. Then suddenly it was the middle of June and time to get off the stick.
Four years ago, I got my licensed renewed and picture taken in Rosemont, where I was the only customer and where two clerks were arguing and vying to see who could take a better picture of me. I went out on a Wednesday night before the dance and I tought I would do the same thing this time. But being sensible, I decided to check on PennDOT's website to make sure the Rosemont office was still open late on Wednesdays. After 10-15 minutes of searching the website and trying, mostly failing, to find the simple list of PennDOT offices and their hours, I finally found the PDF in a non-intuitive section of the site and discovered that evening hours had been severely curtailed, not only in Rosemont, but at all of the offices, and that the only night any center was open late was Thursday. Guess who has plans this Thursday. And guess who will have an expired license if she waits until next Thursday. So, for better or for worse, I decided to brave a Center City office and rationalized this decision by telling myself it was relatively close to my office, I take a late lunch so the big crowds will have dissipated (incidentally, this theory never holds true at the post office either), and that it's just a picture, which should be a quick thing. Right.
I leave my office on 15th and Walnut just before 1:30pm, headed for the PennDOT office on 11th and Market. As I approach the address, things don't look promising. Buildings look vacant. Not good. Finally, I notice a small sign in one of the windows saying that this PennDOT location closed on May 30th and all business will now be conducted at the next closest office, some 5-ish blocks away on 8th and Arch. Now the clock is ticking.
I make it to 8th and Arch at about 1:45pm to discover a long line out the door. Figuring that the line is for people waiting to take a learner's permit test, I walk up to the door and peer in, but everyone I ask says there's just one line. While I figure it never occured to anyone else to ask if it was otherwise, I get in line and start calculating how long I can wait before I have to cry off so I can get back to work in time.
The line is the typical downtown scene: many younger folks getting permits now that school is out, mothers with small children in tow. Behind me a young woman waiting to submit a change-of-address form gets uppity when an elderly woman who has trouble walking is helped inside ahead of others (likely to sit down), even after two people tell her she can submit her address change online at any computer with internet access and not have to wait here at all. Still she remains on line, yelling about how unfair it all is.
Finally, really only a few minutes later, an employee comes outside and issues numbers to the three of us on the long line with camera cards. I rush in and am taken right away, answer three questions, and am allowed to select the best of three pictures. A minute later I'm back out the door, in plenty of time to walk back to work and hopefully forget about PennDOT for four more years.
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