DMV visit filled with kindness

Everybody has a Department of Motor Vehicles story.

After my recent trip to the DMV in Priest River, I looked up cartoons about this much-maligned place of business. There's one with a sour-faced woman, arms crossed, hair in a tight bun titled, “Atilla the DMV employee.” Another ends with, “Now go to the end of the line to make a new appointment for a month from now. And no, I never smile. I was born angry.”

My favorite was a redhead interviewing for a DMV job, and she tells the interviewer, “You may ask your questions only when I call your name. Don't waste my time with chit-chat. I don't have all day, got that.” The DMV supervisor asks gleefully, “When can you start?”

Obviously these cartoonists have never met Mary Michele — who's always been called Shelley. She is in the Ponderay office. I'll get this out of the bag right away — she's also from California, and has been here about five years. This particular day she was on loan over in Priest River.

I stopped by the DMV because my car needed tabs — and has since October 2022. Somehow this legal matter had been overlooked, and no one had noticed, not me or the police. It took our visiting daughter to update me.

I was the last number called before Shelley's lunch hour. It should have been a simple transaction but first she had to fix a glitch that did not have the car attached to my profile. It first belonged to my mother, and both our names were on the title. She got that easily corrected.

When I paid for the tabs with a debit card the system recorded an error and wouldn't process the transaction. Shelley called multiple people trying to get it smoothed out — waiting on hold. Meanwhile her lunch hour ticked away minute by minute. She shut the blinds, hung the closed sign, and locked the door after one man entered despite the signals.

Through it all she kept up a pleasant conversation, along with her friendly smile and upbeat attitude. Not one blink of grouch. By the time the whole thing was finished instead of eating lunch, her “lunch hour” had eaten most of the clock. I heard her pop something in the microwave while she was on one of her calls.

When I left the building there was already a small group waiting outside ready to grab a number. I'm certain she stayed just as welcoming, just as patient, with each of them. If there was any growling, it was her stomach.

This isn't at all what the DMV cartoons depict. Obviously, there is some truth there — cartoonists rely on real life messaging. But I've learned, and am still learning, not to get sucked into group think. Nobody likes lumpy gravy — and neither should I lump people or situations or settings, and think “they're all like that.”

I for one, left the DMV building — yes, later than planned — but full of bounce. I had my tabs — even new license plates coming in the mail. Shelley and I had gotten in a few laughs; I'd been completely inspired by her attitude, glad she found Idaho.

And I have my own story to tell about the DMV — one that is all good.