I had to go to the DMV recently and I had a very good time. No – I really did! The highlight was dealing with the woman behind the counter who was gathering personal information. After she had my name, address and telephone number, she looked at me and said:
“I will write down that your eyes are hazel. Is that OK?”
I have no idea what color hazel is, and the only time I have heard anyone describe something as hazel is when they refer to eyes. Everyone says my eyes are hazel, so I said OK.
“How tall are you?”
I hesitated a moment, then said “I used to be 6-3, but I always put 6-4 on my high school basketball program to intimidate the opponents.”
“So how tall are you now?”
“Probably 6-2”
“Let’s compromise and put down 6-3.”
I was really beginning to like this lady.
“How much do you weigh?”
I hesitated again. “I need to start working out. I have lost too much muscle. I probably only weigh 165 pounds.”
“That makes you sound too skinny. What do you think you will weigh if you get yourself into shape?”
“At least 175 or 180.”
“OK, how about if we put down 175?”
“Great, thanks for doing this.”
Then she looked at her form to see what the next question was. She looked at me and asked “What color did your hair used to be?”
This hurt my feelings a little bit. I have hair, but I guess it is mostly gray now. In my mind, I am still 30 years old with light brown hair. “It used to be brown,” I said.
She could tell these questions were hard on my self-image. “How about if I put down brown, but this will be the last time.”
If I get stopped by the police, the photo on my driver license will look like me, but my height, weight and hair color will mostly be what I wished they were.
We allow people to have Vanity License Plates for their cars. Why not let us have vanity driver licenses? For an extra $10 a year our license would list the height and weight we would like to be. And for an extra $25 per year our driver license picture would be what we wished we looked like. My wife would have me put a picture of Rob Lowe on my license. I would have her put a picture of Eva Longoria on hers. (Note to editor: Let’s make sure we get our stories straight. If my wife talks to you, please tell her that I wanted to write that my wife is the most beautiful person I know, so I preferred that she put her own picture on her license. But then you can say that you insisted I put some other name in here because it would be funnier. Thanks in advance.)
I realize that this could cause some problems. If only one person could have a particular picture and I put Rob Lowe on my license, whose picture would he put on his? And if my wife and I committed a crime and were running away from the authorities, what would the police say in their APB? “Be on the lookout for a man who wishes he were 6-3, weighed 175 pounds and looked like Rob Lowe. He is traveling with a woman who wishes she were 5-10 and weighed 120 pounds and looked like Eva Longoria.” We could probably avoid being caught except that our get-away car has vanity license plates that say “LESUEUR.”
David LeSueur lives in Littleton and looks nothing like Rob Lowe or Eva Longoria.