For most people this is easy. So why do I dread this so much?
No matter. It is time to prove to the State of Florida that I exist.
I have gathered the pile of documentation required: a birth certificate, a marriage certificate, a passport, and my SC license.
In the parking lot the day is clear, and palm trees dream lazily in the summer heat.
But as soon as I enter the door everything changes. The curving lines of foliage disappear in a building that might easily have existed in SC, all lines and piercing angles, the ceiling pressing low and heavy.
A heavy rope shunts people to one side of the building, and the line is long. I take a deep breath and call on my reserves of patience; I am going to be here a while.
Ahead, a bored female employee is interrogating an elderly woman; I catch one of the questions: Are you a convicted felon? In SC questions like this are generally in writing, but here they are all oral and create a sense of guilt, a feeling of inflexible, half-accusing legal authority.
As a teenager I was treated for social anxiety, but what I had more than anything was protocol anxiety, a term I invented for lack of a better one. My discomfort spikes in situations where there are either strict codes of behavior or, worse, a feeling of some hidden unknowable code.
What this means for me is that in these situations I bumble; the odds of my doing something embarrassing skyrockets to the point of inevitability; despite a stellar college academic record, I have for tense, cheek-burning seconds forgotten my phone number. What will it be this time? Only protocol knows.
In this building protocol is everywhere. The signs that appear around the central room reinforce the impression of rules arbitrarily made and mechanically enforced.
A sign taped to one of the desks reads: “Returned checks will be sent to the county attorney for prosecution.” Prosecution? I envision a grandstanding check-waving shyster pacing in front of a witness stand, all pointing fingers and damning rhetorical questions.
I know this image is ludicrous, but still. Prosecution for a bounced check? The word is so heavy. It seems extreme.
To escape my mind, I return to my physical surroundings for refuge. My husband Donnie is moving ahead in the line. He has already been through this once. He had to select a political party in order to get his new state license, even though political apathy claimed him years ago after George W. Bush got elected for a second term.
He came home and waved his license around. “Guess what? You are looking at a proud member of the PirateParty.”
“Pirate Party?” I asked. “Please tell me. What is the PirateParty?”
“There were a bunch of local parties to choose from, and one was the Pirate Party.”
“So what is its platform? What does it stand for?”
“Who knows?” He grinned rakishly. “Arggh.”
Chairs for waiting are arranged in even, sedate rows and calls of “Next” peal in the heavy silence rippled by the mumbling undercurrent. A sign on a nearby door says, “Authorized personnel only.” What, I wonder, would happen to me if I went inside?
So many ways to break protocoland call unwanted attention to yourself.
I estimate is that by merely walking through the door of the D.M.V. my chances of going to prison have risen about 50 per cent. Crimes seem so easy to commit here, you could almost do it be accident.
Finally the line moves forward and I am relieved when an employee behind the desk asks, “What can I help you with?” Unlike the other workers, she offers a warm friendly smile. I am relieved and want her to like me.
I tell her I want to renew my license and Donnie, beside me, says he needs to get a Florida license tag.
The pile of documentation he hands her is not enough; he leaves the building to see if he can find a second proof of address, a bill or a medical receipt, as the worker turns her attention to me.
At her request I turn over the pile of documentation that shows I was born in the U.S, that I am a real person, and not an illegal immigrant, a foreign spy, or a drug lord. There is a tense moment, a problem with my middle name on my social security card not matching my license, a problem easily resolved.
The eye exam is next. Why is it that I can never remember to center my nose before hitting the upper bar with my forehead that makes the letters behind the lens appear? I read the bottom line in the only column I can see.
“No, no,” the worker says. “Read the whole line.”
After a minute of bumbling confusion, I finally get centered and the second column of letters appears. Relieved, I read them aloud.
“Good,” she says.
As usual, I overthink the yes or no questions that follow.
“Are you a retired military veteran?”
I wonder if there is anything about me that looks like a retired military veteran.
“A convicted felon?”
For a Kafkaesque moment, the image I have of myself as a convicted felon is so vivid and compelling, I almost say yes.
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“Are you Asian?”
Um.
“Are you black?”
With pink contact lenses, I bet I could pass for albino, but part of me wants to say yes just to see what she will say. But I restrain myself. Protocol.
Near the end of the questioning the girl passes me a form to verify that all the information is correct. I do and hand it back.
“Do you swear,” she stares at me gravely, “under threat of perjury that all of the information is correct?”
I feel suddenly cold. Again I have edged close to criminality without even being aware of it, and I wonder if I should make the point that I did round up my height an extra half inch. I imagine burly federal agents bashing down my door with a battering ram, brandishing guns the size of small horses and a measuring tape.
The time has finally come for me to pick a political party. The girl slides a sheet of paper toward me with a menu of options on it. Looking at it, all of the local parties on it sound alien save one, a beacon of familiarity in my anxious haze: the Pirate Party.
The girl is staring at me with eager expectation, and I feel pressured to choose quickly.
It bothers me that none of the other parties look familiar. I am new to the state, and how can I choose, not knowing what any of them represent? Is it a weird Florida law or protocolthat you are expected to choose a local subsidiary party? Well, when in Rome…
I am thinking too much. The girl is still staring. I just want to get through this.
The Pirate Party lures me. It sounds so brave and romantic, sailing away from land, away from the ropes that guide, the signs that warn, control, and confine, away from the threats and the stares and the questions, away from protocol, away from everything, away from here.
Do I get my eye patch here and how much do you charge? I announce my choice.
Beside me, Donnie is laughing at me. “You know, you could have chosen democrat if you wanted to.”
Oh. I look at the list again. Sure enough, “democrat” appears at the top of the page, obvious, there all along. There is it, the expected flush, I can check it off my list. I had almost abandoned my liberal party loyalties in favor of an image of nautical escape. The girl is staring at me again.
“Sorry,” I say. I want to disappear. “Can you change it?”
Amused, she nods. “Now just move over there and we’ll take your picture.” I comply. “Smile if you want.” The light flashes.
As always, I blink and the picture has to be taken again.
Afterward I look at my new license, tangerine colored with a rippling ocean shoreline in the background. My skin looks darker than I think it should. Maybe the race and ethnicity questions were not so ludicrous after all. Together my license and the car tag, which says “The Sunshine State,” costs over 500.00.
It is official. I am a true Floridian now. My license will be valid until the year 2021, almost a decade from now. Until then, I have proof that I exist in case anyone ever confronts me about it.
All in all, it is not as bad as it could have been. I only embarrassed myself once and I go back and forth over whether to include it in my blog.
Best of all, I have survived Protocol and despite many apparent close calls, I have managed to avoid false confessions, prosecution, and prison time.
As I exit the glass doors, the low flat ceiling gives way to a lofty vault of blue sky. The stiff geometric lines and sharp angles have dissolved; I am basking in sunlight and feeling human.
My protocol anxiety gives way to the kind of the mild buzz I sometimes get when pain suddenly stops.
I look around at the palm trees and the billowing white bright clouds. I allow myself to breathe the fresh air. I am in Florida. The day has promise.
If only I liked to drive.