Today, I learned that I am a suspect in the ongoing War on Terror.
Since 9/11, I had heard about the curtailing of certain rights and privileges in the name of "homeland security." Meanwhile, I have also heard that we're spreading freedom all over the globe. "Freedom" has now apparently taken on a new definition in these unstable times. To prove my point, I will now use it in a sentence: "You could smell the freedom from a mile away."
But I digress. Since the terrorist attacks on our nation, I have for the most part been shielded from the adverse effects of "homeland security." Yes, I have been patted down before entering Shea Stadium to see the Mets play, and missed an entire inning of opening day this year lest someone attempt to smuggle in a landmine that they presumably would manage to plant under home plate. But I have not flown on an airplane, even domestically, because to do so would mean risking the loss of my house keys, which would of course be confiscated because they could be used to poke a snarky flight attendant's eyes out.
Hence, little did I know that I would find myself knee-deep in the War on Terror when I went to the Motor Vehicle Commission this afternoon to renew my driver's license.
It seems some of the guys who flew those commercial airplanes into our buildings had lived in New Jersey, and while they were here, they had managed to obtain phony driver's licenses under our old DMV rules. As such, our state has since instituted a six-point system by which we must now establish our true identities before we can get our licenses renewed.
Being that this was my first time renewing my license under the new system, I arrived unprepared. Silly me: I thought my current New Jersey photo driver's license would suffice as proper ID. But no. There is, after all, an infinitesimal chance that my exact double is in New Jersey, had managed to get a hold of my current driver's license and had memorized both my home address and Social Security number.
Of course, no one raises this possibility until you have already spent a fair amount of time filling out forms and standing in line.
The man at the counter said I would need either my birth certificate or passport, a copy of a current utility bill, urine and blood samples, liver and onion samples, a retinal scan, four fried chickens, a cup of hot fat, the head of Alfredo Garcia, a Davy Jones lunchbox, Davey Jones' locker, and the home version of "Wheel of Fortune" to meet the identification requirements.
So I made the 10-minute drive back to my house, somehow secured the necessary items, drove the 10 minutes back to the MVC, got back on line, and finally made my way up to the front, only to hear the woman behind the counter sigh: "I need another point."
"But the man said..."
"Ay, I'm going to go home right now."
"...this is what I needed. It's all here."
"I need your Social Security card."
I no longer carry that card around. It's a ragged, crumpled, decades-old piece of flimsy cardboard that has been crammed inside far too many wallets and gone through at least two laundry cycles. "Can I give you something else?"
"How 'bout an ATM card?"
That I had. And so, having produced enough documents to fill a three-drawer file cabinet, I was issued a number and pointed to one of the many chairs I would be forced to occupy over the next few hours.
This of course gave me a chance to stew. You know, I was born here, raised here and schooled here. I have spent all but 10 days of my life in this country. As a white, adult American male, I'd long since grown accustomed to my place among the least-oppressed segment of the world's population. Yet here I was, being forced to prove -- at three different checkpoints, as it turned out -- that I met the identification requirements to renew a driver's license I'd earned in the friggin' 1980s, for crissakes.
This was a pile of freedom so high I would need a shovel to dig my way out.
We won't go on to discuss the ridiculous game of musical chairs my fellow drivers and I subsequently had to endure, or the fact that the statewide MVC computer system crashed when I was three seats away from getting my new license. Such is the stuff of which "a day at the motor vehicle agency" cliches were born ages ago.
We expect inefficiency, incompetence and downright rudeness at the DMV, or the MVC, or whatever the bureaucratic bunglers decide to call it next. What we don't expect, having been born in the U.S.A. and played by the rules all of our lives, is to have to pass a series of tests in order to prove it. We don't expect to be treated as suspects -- nor do we deserve it.
And so, to the State of New Jersey and its Motor Vehicle Commission, I say: Thanks for the Freedom Sandwich. Please note that I did not eat it with a smile.
