Over the Christmas and New Year's holidays, I did something unforgivable to the Son of Never Stops Eating, and he will never let me forget it.
For awhile now, I've been telling him that we should probably get him a state-issued ID card. He has a debit card and a school ID, and the next step in Transition to Adulting would be obtaining a state ID card. Really, the only obstacle was that I didn't want to take a day off work to wait in line; I knew the Son of Never Stops Eating would be thrilled to take a morning off of school no matter what the reason, but I want to use my own work leave for exciting stuff like birding, or deep cleaning the garage.
January 2nd was a cold and miserable day; as I was out running errands, the thought popped into my head: Hey! I bet EVERYONE is sleeping off their New Year's partying hangovers and watching football bowl games and going to the gym to work out as part of their New Year's resolutions, and the people who aren't at the gym or at Whole Foods stocking up on healthy food or at work are probably looking outside at the rain thinking, ewwww…..who wants to go out there? I bet there is NO ONE at the Department of Public Safety office! I raced home, picked up the Son of Never Stops Eating and the documentation we needed to prove citizenship, residency, and identity, and raced back to the DPS, convinced that the office would be empty except for the people working there and that those people were probably bored out of their minds at the lack of customers and would be thrilled to see someone.
This is going to be great, I told the Son of Never Stops Eating. We can get this knocked out and I won't have to miss work and you won't have to miss school.
I'm OK with missing school, Mom, he said sulkily. Nothing ever happens at school except boring stuff like learning. You're the only one who doesn't want me to miss school.
We walked into the building and up the stairs....where it immediately became clear that lots of people had apparently had exactly the same idea I'd had- the day after New Year's Day was going to be an excellent time to go to the DPS.
Oh, I said to the Son of Never Stops Eating. It looks like everyone had the same idea I did. He rolled his eyes and gave a deep, angst-filled sigh. But now we're here, so we might as well wait. Thirty minutes later, we were still waiting, but we'd moved slightly closer to the front of the line- which was, a helpful DPS lady came out and informed us, about a three hours long line. By then I was committed. I'd already invested thirty minutes of my time into this project plus the gas and wear and tear on my vehicle; if I left now, those thirty minutes were completely wasted.
I bet if the Orange Man weren't President there wouldn't be lines like this, the Son of Never Stops Eating muttered.
An hour later, the end of the outside line was in sight. We'd still have to wait some more once we got into the DPS itself, but we'd get to sit down. My lower back was aching and my right knee was starting to hurt. The helpful DPS lady came back and repeated her spiel- three hour wait, lots of kids out of school, you could make an appointment or renew online. The Son of Never Stops Eating sighed and said Mom, this is SO boring.
Another hour later, and we got a number and two chairs. I sat looking expectantly at the electronic board flashing the numbers of who was next; the Son of Never Stops Eating sat next to me, explaining to me on a regular basis just how boring this was. I know it's boring, I told him. This is what adulting is. Adulting is waiting in lines being bored so you can fill out paperwork and hand over money to people. It was worse before smartphones. At least now we can all catch up on our social media while waiting in boring lines. Mom, he responded, this is the most BORING thing ever. NOTHING is more boring than this. This is even more boring than school. This is my vacation and you're making me wait in this BORING line when I could be doing fun stuff like Legos and watching Simpsons.
Finally, another hour later, and our number flashed up on the board. Hey, I told him, that's us! It's our turn! He sighed dramatically and said, so we're done with the boring stuff? We can go home now?
The actual process of getting the ID card only took a few minutes. It doesn't seem to expire for several years, for which I am personally quite grateful. However, the next day I mentioned to someone within the Son of Never Stops Eating's hearing that we'd gone and gotten his ID card. Yes, he said, my mom made me do it and it was SO BORING! Then a few days later we drove by the building and he made sure to point out that it was the Building of the Boring Place.
He will never forgive me for taking him there and making him wait forever to get a little plastic card, but I didn't have to take a day off work- so the experience wasn't a total loss.
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