Coming to you live from the Watertown Registry of Motor Vehicles. An automated voice calls out your turn with messages like “Now serving B211 at window 10”. The registry put red LED boards fed with interesting information like a spotlight story about people collecting 1.4 servings of food and someone is being put on trial by the FTC for selling spyware that doesn't work. It is branded the “Motor Vehicle Network”. It is a part of a happier friendlier registry. I like this new network. Maybe I can get it via satellite at home.

A baby is crying until his grandmother sticks a pacifier in his mouth but he still sounds more like a duck or a wild monkey than a baby. The trivia on the board asks what the capital of some African country is. The answer is Abuja. The music plays - “I can't go on thinking nothing's wrong”. The now serving board is going berserk dinging and ringing now serving announcements in rapid fire every second. Dido is singing “I won't walk. I won't sleep until you are resting here with me.”

Jeremy is here for his third attempt at his driving test. He is nervous for the test. The test is at 9:30 and now that we are waiting he is worried. He says “The strange thing about this place is they don't have a clock. It is like a casino.” He told me on the way over that he was one of the few absentee voters in Florida to pass the IQ test required to be able to vote in that silly state. Apparently the voting return envelope had a location for one stamp in a small rectangle. On weighing the envelope Jeremy decided that it was too heavy so he added an extra stamp for good measure. Apparently a few weeks later people reported a large number of absentee votes bouncing because of insufficient postage.

Although Jeremy has a degree from MIT he doesn't have a driver’s license anywhere in the United States. This isn't because he can't drive. He moved to St. Maarten and let his license lapse.

Seal is singing “you remain my power my pleasure my pain...”

For anyone taking the Mass drivers license test in Watertown I can tell you a bit about the course and how you might avoid the two big areas where you can fail. I've seen them fail The first trick they like to pull is to take you down an old street that crosses some railroad tracks and in front of it is an obstructed dilapidated orange rusted miniature stop sign. If you drive past it without stopping you fail. The next trap is the three point turn. You get asked to do this when on a back road similar to a part of a parking lot after the train tracks. Jeremy didn't know what one was.

The first two times Jeremy failed the test we had the same woman officer. She was pure evil. At least she wasn't a huge fan of Jeremy and his quest to drive again. She complained that the PT Cruiser was a truck and that you need to bring a car with four full seats. She also threatened to give me a speeding ticket for driving 35 in a 30 mile per hour zone.

This time, a year later, Jeremy got a man who seemed more reasonable. We won the race to the back to be the first in line behind the state trooper car so we were up first. The officer started by inspecting the car and didn't find any problems.

Then Jeremy got to question number one. “Please show me your hand signals.” Jeremy showed a correct right and a correct left. Then the officer asked about the third hand signal. Jeremy didn't know what else to signal so he asked what it was. At first the officer said it was stop and then Jeremy squirmed in his seat a bit and he finally he admitted that he didn't know what the third signal was. To my disbelief Jeremy was about to fail his third consecutive Mass drivers test.

When the officer moved into the passenger seat he asked Jeremy why he needed to take the test. Jeremy said that it was because his wallet was stolen while he working out of the country.
Jeremy had a license when he was 16 until he was 26. When Jeremy told the officer that he lived in St. Maarten for the past six years they had found some common ground as they started chatting about living in the islands. The officer expressed that he wished he had a job that let him live anywhere. Then they chatted for a bit on going on shark dives in St. Maarten. The officer had touched a reef shark on his last dive.

Finally, without ever having pulled out of the space the officer told us “Look I have a lot of 16 year old kids who really need to take the test. I'll sign your form and we can pretend I took you out on the road test for fifteen minutes. Go inside and you can get you license.
I could see the look of fear in the eyes of the pimply sixteen year old sitting with his curly haired mother in the car behind us. All the other new drivers looked scared including the over tanned girl with her boyfriend sponsor. This cop had failed the first person without even putting the car into drive.

Once inside the red LEDs run across again:“Please no running screaming playing with chairs or the ATM machine. Thank you.” I was wondering who this is directed at. Are they afraid people will be so happy to get a drivers license that they will start throwing chairs at each other and hump the ATM machine?

If Jeremy can get his drivers license this year than surely the Red Sox can win the World Series. He was charged $100 at the cashier. When he asked why it was so expensive the cashier said “Apparently you have taken this test more than once.”

On the way out the sign reads “Thank you for visiting the registry of motor vehicles”. Thank you registry. Another example of beaurocracy gone good.