Officially official

I thought for awhile about a blog that would delve into the costly consequences of having to depend on the services of someone who does not like their job. Maybe they like it, but are indifferent to their work which, I believe, is more insidious. Then I thought that could lead into another blog about how that's made me work even harder to earn institutional services that we have found available, thus negating the stereotype of public service recipients being lazy, tax-sucking slobs. As much as I love to preach and fly in the face of convention, I got tired just having that whole conversation in my head.
Suffice it to say, I finally received my Cal driver's license. I applied for it the first week of September. Make no mistake, though. My gripe, well, bafflement is better said, is not with the DMV. I followed their exact instructions, honored their request for more information regarding my seizure history (a delay I expected), and found the clerk I spoke to very professional and courteous. What happened was that the DMV sent it to my p.o. box and it wasn't delivered but sent back to the DMV. Why would the post office do this? Because some min-wage high-school lackey looked at our change of address form, filled out in Lanesboro (so we're talking mid-August), and decided one of our last names would be sufficient instead of both. As a result, we were getting mom's mail and some of ours. She was still getting some of our mail back in Lanesboro. I called the post office and they told me to fill out new change of address forms, but one for each member of the household and that mom should do the same, including one for Dad. (Insert rhetorical question here.) We did. The license must have been caught in that transition, therefore not delivered to "Weaver". I didn't understand this until my temporary license was a week from expiring. I called the DMV and they told me simply that it was returned. I asked if I could go pick it up, just to be safe, and I was told No, the local DMV doesn't distribute the hard copies and that I'll have to have my name put on a list for the hard copy to be re-sent. Then she said, "We'll send you a temporary one in the mean time." (Insert rhetorical question here.) I thought she was joking. She wasn't. Having not received anything after a week I called again and a different clerk said she didn't see any record that the license was sent, not even a temporary one and I should go to the DMV, wait in line to get a number, and apply for another temporary one. Well, there's a happy ending to all of this: on Wednesday I received a handwritten, temporary license good for 60 days, which was a relief since my present temporary license was to expire yesterday. Lo and behold, the hard copy arrived yesterday, just in time. But I love the irony: I suddenly was licensed in triplicate, if only for one day.