Getting My Real I. D.—and Making a New Friend

Some bonding and bonhomie with a bureaucrat

The other day when I turned into the road leading to the parking lot of my county clerk’s office, I passed an untidy line of people spilling from the building’s front door into the chilly, overcast day. The line trailed along the sidewalk in front and nearly wrapped around the building to the side entrance.

People stood looking this way and that, some holding folders, others fooling with their phones, a few even sitting on the narrow strip of grass between the road and the sidewalk. I wondered if having an appointment to get my Real I. D. would make any difference. I hoped it would. I’d made my appointment almost a month before. Was this the line for appointments? I tried not to entertain that thought.

After parking, I went in the side entrance. I made my way over to the main entrance and told an employee standing at a small lectern there that I had an appointment. She gestured to two women sitting at a nearby table.

When I stepped over to them, one of them asked for my passport and Social Security card. Looking at a printed list on a bleached and nicked clipboard, she found my name on the list, highlighted it in neon yellow, handed me my passport and Social Security card, and told me to take a seat and listen for my name.

I turned to my right and looked over a small sea of people. I could not see an empty seat among them. In fact, some seats were occupied by two people. But there was plenty of space to stand along the wall on the other side of the room so I walked over there and posted myself against it, almost disbelieving that things were going so smoothly but also preparing myself for the delays and detours that so often plague bureaucratic endeavors.

But in less than five minutes I heard my name called and directions to go to desk 10. Lashonda was the name of the clerk at desk 10. “Passport?” Lashonda asked. “Social? Driver’s licence?” I gave her the documents. “Name change order?” she asked.

“What?” I said. Recently divorced, I’d changed my name back to my maiden name. I wanted my Real I. D. to incorporate this change. I had only my divorce decree. This document shows an order to change my name but it is not a Name Change Order. I explained this to Lashonda. She listened. I’d bypassed the line out the front door but I wondered now if this would be a hurdle I couldn’t clear.

Lashonda got up from her desk and went to consult another clerk a few desks over as well as an official with the state police. “It’s—!” I started to say as I saw them paging through the divorce decree. Lashonda raised her hand. “Ma’am! Hold on!” she said.

I wanted to keep going. I wanted to say, “It worked for my passport! It worked for my Social! It should work here!” But I just told myself, Hush, shh, don’t antagonize.

Lashonda returned to her desk and tapped on her keyboard, looked at her computer screen, smoothed the crease in my divorce decree where I had folded it to cram it into the bag holding all my other documentation. And then she said, “Whew, I think I might need to go home and change my clothes! Someone’s perfume has just gone on and stuck to me!”

I took this as a good sign. Either everything was copacetic with my documentation and we were moving on or Lashonda had become distracted and might overlook this business about a Name Change Order. Then the state police official came over. He was a large man. He sort of lumbered. I sighed, wondering if this might be the end.

“Have you tried my wife’s lasagna recipe yet?” he asked Lashonda. “No, I haven’t,” she said, smiling now and keeping her eyes on her computer screen. “Probably this weekend,” she added, “I’ll let you know how it turns out.” He lingered for a moment, standing behind Lashonda, her screen reflected in his eyes, and then he drifted away. I sighed again, this time with relief that things still seemed to be on track.

As Lashonda and I waited for papers and forms to scan, upload, populate, print out, and so on, we passed the time talking. A date somewhere in my documentation jived with the birthday of her children. “Twins?” I asked. I noticed her saying birthday. “Yes,” she said. “I have twins, too!” I said, “one of each. You?” “Uh-huh, boy and girl,” Lashonda said, adding, “you’d be surprised how many times I been asked, ‘Identical?’” “I know, right?! Boy. Girl. How unidentical can you get?” I said.

“My son went out to California for college,” Lashonda continued, “I didn’t do too well with that, he was so far away. But he’s home now training to be a welder at, oh, what’s it called, that program?”

I shared a few ideas. I used to be a labor law attorney. I was familiar with some of the trade programs. But none of the ones I mentioned clicked with Lashonda. She consulted her phone. This seemed a wee unprofessional to me but I was not annoyed or offended. I was enjoying this common ground that she and I had discovered.

“My daughter,” Lashonda said, after giving up on finding the name of her son’s program, “she works with adults who have problems with their minds, like they wanna talk but they can’t. I don’t understand it but she likes it.” “That’s what matters,” I said, “that’s what I tell my kids.” “You are right about that,” Lashonda said.

Lashonda asked me to take a few steps back and look at the blue dot in front of her computer monitor to take my picture. I sensed we were in the home stretch. “You look young!” she said after she took my picture. I figured that was just some boilerplate blarney but, in fact, when I saw it I agreed. I do look young(er)—the grayscaling is so far to the lighter end that the dark circles under my eyes don’t appear.

Lashonda stapled my picture to a temporary Real I.D. printed from her printer. She folded the paper into three neat sections and handed it to me. We said good-bye and wished each other well.

For some reason I didn’t understand, Lashonda was not able to make my Real I.D. valid for the maximum of eight years. I will need to renew it in four years. I could do that online. But I may renew it in person. I am curious about that lasagna recipe. I also appreciated how my time with Lashonda was a welcome reminder that taking care of life’s administrata is a chance to get a little real, with a real person, even without a Change Name Order.

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