Tennessee's Newest NASCAR Racer

That would be me, after I endured the seventh ring of hell that is the Tennessee DMV. This adventure stretched over three different months and two nightmare trips to the DMV. I ventured out on June 29 to the nearest facility with my pay stub and bank statement in hand as proof of address. I stood in a line that went out the door and around the corner in stifling heat, and it was another long, winding line once I made it indoors to the air conditioning. And after three hours of waiting, I got to the woman at the front desk only for her to tell me that I needed my original birth certificate if I wanted to change my Illinois driver's license into a Tennessee one. Why? I have no fucking clue. But I knew that my birth certificate was somewhere in storage, so I drove to the storage unit and sweated off about 50 pounds searching around before finding it. I then decided to get my ass back to the DMV because I had a slip of paper stating that I could jump to the front of the line if I returned with my needed documents that same day. And after another long wait sitting around waiting for the desk clerk to call my deli number, I sauntered up to the desk and...proceeded to fail the vision test. It was getting harder and harder for me to pass that vision exam in Chicago, and I finally couldn't make out those blurry little letters here in Memphis. I turned with my tail tucked between my legs and went home to find an eye doctor and get tested.

The doctor was recommended by my fiancee, and all went well. He gave me a thorough exam last Monday, and determined that I was nearsighted and needed glasses. Yesterday the call came that they had arrived, and I went to the office and picked up my first pair of real glasses. (I had a fake cosmetic pair in high school that didn't magnify anything, but they turned out to be very important. My high school girlfriend told me that if I hadn't been wearing the glasses when she saw me for the first time, she probably wouldn't have been attracted to me. I may still be a virgin if not for some fake specs.) My fiancee warned me that the world would open up and the angels would play harps when I put the glasses on for the first time, but I thought she was exaggerating a little. Nope. It really did seem like a whole new world when I put those babies on. Fuck, was I blind before! Now I'm seeing far away, things are sharper and darker and brighter and any other superlative you can throw in. I freaked out at the fact that I thought my DVD player was turned on when I came home and I pushed the power button to turn it off and it turned out that it was already off. Daaaaaaaaamn!! How freaky is that? I feel like I have Spiderman laser see-through vision. It's even scarier when I take the glasses off because it magnifies how fucking blind as a bat I am right now. And the fiancee is blind while already wearing glasses, so it's time for bifocals for her.

So today was the big trip back to the DMV to tackle that pesky vision test and finally officially claim a Tennessee license. The wait was forever again, but at least the state put tents above the entrance to shield the sun from us suffering fools. They also had a cooler with water bottles, but the ice was melted away early. But I survived the wait (we all should get t-shirts), passed the vision test easily, barely smiled for my picture, and got my license. That's really my last tie to Chicago that got severed. My only ID was Illinois before today. I was afraid that I was going to get pulled over for something and have to present the Illinois license and wind up getting paperwork delivered up to Chicago. My old apartment has been rented out, so clearly, I don't need anything being sent back up there. Now, I am a full-fledged resident of Tennessee. I believe a toothpick will soon start to grow out the corner of my mouth as a result of being an official Tennesseean.

Next on the docket: Wedding plans. They're starting to get put in motion for real real, with the big day being only two and a half months away. My new dilemma: Wedding pics--shall I be bespectacled or sans glasses? Stay tuned...