Our Houston DMV Experience

This basically sums it up.

So, on Friday we decided to go get our Texas driver's licenses at the Texas DMV. Kristen asked me beforehand if I thought it would be as bad as the Virginia DMV. I basically said that all DMVs were bad. We figured that getting there at 11am would be good for missing crowds: not before work, not after work, not during lunch. Boy were we wrong. And boy was I right, at least about Houston's DMV being bad. There were more people in that office than in the Olympic's opening ceremony.

We got there at 11am. Then, we stood in a winding line for about 30 minutes, to get to a desk where a woman checked to make sure we had all the right documents. Then, she gave me a number to wait in another group to actually get my information processed and get my picture taken. Kristen forgot a document, so she was out of the running already. My number was 93. When I got my number, they were on 35.

So, we waited, with Sam in his carseat. Luckily, a couple chairs became available, and we got to sit right in front of the TV showing "All My Children," while probably at least 30 others still were crammed into a 12'x12' standing space. Here, we waited for my number to come up, so that I could stand in another line along the wall underneath the TV. In the meantime, a trooper yelled at folks, including me, to get out of the way because we were blocking their view of the line. (He said, "you've got to move out of the way." I replied, "I'm waiting here with my wife and baby." He said, "no, you've got to move out of this line." I said, "I'm not in this line, I'm waiting." He said, "you are in this line, you're standing there." I said, "don't taze me, bro." Just kidding. But I should have. He was a very pleasant guy. Troopers tend to be, after all.) Apparently, they need to know just how long the line is, so that they can precisely create a critical mass of seething, frustrated, tired tax payers.

After about an hour and forty-five minutes from the time we got there, my number was called, and I got to stand in line again, get my picture taken, and get a temporary license good for 8 weeks, since my real license might take that long to get here. At 1:20pm, after a total of two hours and twenty minutes, I was done. And Kristen gets to go back again. Fortunately, Sam was really good the whole time. It's only a twenty minute drive each way too.

I guess I had it easy. One woman told me that she came with her daughter at 7:30am. They were sent back home 40 minutes away to get another document that they didn't bring. Then, when they returned, they were told that they needed another document that the DMV employee forgot to tell them about, so they went back home for that too. She finished about 5 or 10 minutes before me, so their ordeal lasted over 5.5 hours. Aren't DMVs the greatest?