How my day went (DMV & Jury Summons)

This morning, as I walked past a bus stop where there was a herd of business-people waiting, all of us spontaneously burst into song together, just because we happened to feel like doing so at the moment. And we all had the very same impulse: our choice was to sing the 1928 hit “You’re the Cream in My Coffee”. Then, as soon as we finished, I shook hands with everyone and continued on my way.

The DMV

Heading from North Minneapolis to Apple Valley, I came to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). My goal was to renew my driving license, even tho I never use it (I travel everywhere on foot). You see, I recently received a letter in the mail from the state of Minnesota which warned me that my driving license shall expire this month, therefore I should visit the DMV and pay thirty pieces of silver to get the thing renewed. “You must also pass a vision test,” the letter declared. 

So I opened the door of the DMV office and a very kind secretary greeted me. At that instant, all of the employees of the DMV spontaneously joined me in singing the 1949 hit “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”, from start to finish, at a slightly slower tempo than is advisable. Then, when the song ended, I said to the secretary:

“I’m here to renew my driving license. Here’s my personal check for thirty-three smackers (you can keep the change); but I’m afraid that I’ll fail the vision test, because my eyesight is bad.”

The secretary looked up with a concerned expression: “Why do you think you’ll fail the vision test? It’s really very easy to pass.”

“Because I’m a scholar, therefore I spend most of my time reading and writing,” I said; “so my eyes are accustomed to focusing on fine-print text — you know, ink on paper — tiny words, which appear in books that I hold very close to my face. It’s harder for me to see objects that are far away, like street signs.”

The secretary’s eyes grew wide: “What type of books do you read?”

“I prefer the classics,” I said; “you know: poetry, essays, novels... I also like weird stuff — I’m sure you’re familiar with dada and surrealism…”

The secretary smiled and interjected: “Well, you’re in luck!”

I was taken aback. After a moment of silence, I asked “And what am I in luck about, exactly?”

“About the eye exam!” said the secretary, still smiling. “You said that you were afraid that you would fail it.”

“Yes?” I replied, still confused.

“Well, due to the safety measures that were implemented on account of the resurgence of the Bubonic Plague (which, as you know, has come back into our world because a few bored trillionaires paid some scientists to cook up various infectious diseases in a lab), we here at the Department of Motor Vehicles are not allowed to use our vision testing machine. So you’re off the hook!”

“Did I just hear you right?” I said. “Are you telling me that because the Bubonic Plague is now rampant, I don’t need to prove that my eyesight is adequate?”

“That’s right,” the secretary smiled proudly; “since our vision-testing machine requires its victims to place their head into a vinyl harness that cannot be disinfected, we have determined that it is unsafe and thus banned its use until this Season of Outbreak passes. For, if we don’t save at least a few people’s lives, then nobody will be around to experience the next pandemics that our Rulers plan to unleash upon us — and that would be such a waste!”

She handed me my renewed paperwork, and I said “Wow, thank you!” Then I left the DMV and walked in the direction of the courthouse, because I had been summoned to jury duty. 

My Jury Summons

The idea of serving on a federal jury terrified me. I assumed that the stiff, inhumane atmosphere would elevate my anxiety to insufferable levels. But it turned out that I was wrong to be afraid:

I ended up actually loving this experience: I found it so rewarding that, after it concluded, I decided to seek out my own career as a lawyer. 

So I walked to Harvard Law School and enrolled, and I passed the bar and became a great success. The entire courtroom then broke out into a spontaneous version of the 1941 hit song “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”, as my defendant was sentenced to death.

Luncheon, Thursday

I walked out of the courthouse with a skip in my step, because I was happy. I almost broke into song, but I practiced restraint: “You are a bigshot lawyer for celebrities now, Bryan Ray,” I muttered to myself in sotto voce; “you must maintain decorum; you can’t just sing and dance in the rain whenever you please, like you could back in the days when you were a bricklayer and a computer programmer moonlighting as a famous author.” Then I opened the door of the sandwich shop.

“I have arrived,” I said to the employees of the sandwich shop. 

“May I take your order?” said the shy girl behind the cash register.

“Yes. Do you sell macaroni and cheese?” I said, squinting at the menu, which was printed on the wall to the back and left of this cashier’s head. (My eyesight is bad, so I have a hard time reading small print at long distances.)

“No, we are a sandwich shop,” said the cashier. “Macaroni and cheese is a dish of cooked pasta and sauce made from melted cheddar. But a sandwich is defined as two pieces of bread with one ingredient placed between them. For instance, a cucumber sandwich would have cucumber slices between the bread.”

I looked into the eyes of this cashier and said, “Ah, now I understand. Thank you for explaining that.”

“Do you still want a serving of mac and cheese?” she asked. “Because I know how to make that dish. I eat it at home, by myself, every night, all alone, in the dark. I live in those crowded apartments on the bad side of town. I’ll do you the favor of preparing something that’s not on our menu, because I can sense that there is something special about you.”

My eyes widened, and I smiled “You would do that for me?”

After giving one firm nod, with a look of sincerity (she wore no smile, but her expression was like the kind that a soldier gives her fellow soldier when we’re both fighting the most important battle in THE WAR THAT SHALL END ALL WARS), she answered: “Yes.”

So the woman went over and told her boss that she was taking an early lunch, and then she disappeared into the employee break room and eventually emerged with two bowls of macaroni and cheese. We sat down at a table together and I said “Ooh, this looks good!”

CONCLUSION

I ended up helping this girl become a union leader in her district. She is now the most powerful advocate for human rights in the world. 

I myself quit my job as a celebrity lawyer and used my legal expertise to help impoverished countries fight the oil cartels that were trying to poison them in broad daylight on the world stage. 

Then every living creature in the entire solar system scrambled to the foreground and sang the popular 1921 foxtrot: “Ain’t We Got Fun”.

Bonus Stuff

Well, the above entry was easy to write, because all I did was recount the day’s events that I actually lived thru; so now I’ll use the rest of the blank part of this scroll of papyrus to devise another tale about hanging out with a cop.

This time around, the police officer’s name will be Shelly. (Same as the cashier in the memoir above.)

So Officer Shelly and I were just cruising thru the neighborhood shooting our government-issued firearms at road signs and smoking marijuana cigarettes. Then someone burst out of one of the doors of a high-rise and said “Help! Help!”

“Stop the car, Shell,” I said, crushing the cherry of my joint against the dashboard; “I think that woman needs assistance.”

So Officer Shelly and I climbed out the windows of our police vehicle and approached the screaming, weeping lady who had just come out of the high-rise apartment complex.

“Ma’am, we’re here to offer you a shoulder to cry on,” said Officer Shelly, pointing her firearm at the woman. “Now, please tell us what your beef is.”

The woman did her best to stop spazzing out; then she told us the problem. 

We patted her on the back, to reassure her; then we solved the crime-in-progress. 

Denouement

When we walked in slow motion out of the automatic glass sliding doors of the high-rise apartment complex holding a freshly killed deer carcass in either hand, Officer Shelly and I looked admirable against the orange-brown paint of the building’s exterior. “Done, and done,” I smiled and handed the weeping woman one of the deer carcasses.

“Is this for ME?” said the woman.

“It’s for you, ma’am,” Shelly assured her.

“Oh, oh…” the woman began to blubber again, in thanks for our bravery and service.

“It’s our job,” I patted the woman’s back; “we CHOSE this life-path: there’s no need to praise us — our salaries come out of your taxes. Now enjoy your venison.”

“Wow,” I said to Officer Shelly when we got back inside our squad car, “that dame really was thankful.”

“People tend to appreciate when you help them,” said my partner, Officer Shelly.

“What should we do with the remainder of this week’s episode?” I asked, beginning to eat a piece of raw deer-flesh with the fur still on it, as Shelly began to drive out of the high-rise’s parking lot. 

Officer Shelly put out her hand: “Gimme a taste.”

I tore off a bit of the pelt that had a fair amount of meat upon it and placed it in her palm. She gave it a sniff and remarked: “Mmm!”

So we drove to an island in the Indian Ocean and had a good rest-of-the-day. (Officer Shelly and I both enjoy grooving to the same type of music.) Gigantic ships kept visiting us from time to time, during our evening together, but we waved them off: “We’re not lost,” we would explain. — “Oh, sorry!” the captains would always answer; “we assumed that your plane crashed or something, and that you needed rescuing — we wanted to offer you a ride home.” 

“Your impulse is much appreciated,” we would yell back; “it’s the thought that counts!” Then we would turn our tunes back up.