License Renewal

Not me, but you get the picture

On May 31, my license expires. For 90 days, my parents have been hassling me to renew my license before it expires, but since NJ license renewals can only be done in person, and since I am exceedingly busy blogging I haven't been able to find the time to drop everything, take a train to NJ, get picked up by my mom, drive home, take the car to the DMV, wait in a line for 45 minutes clutching my "6 points of identification" which amounts to a passport and like ten bank statements since I lost my social security card, get a new license and then repeat the driving/train in reverse. I was trying to figure out when I would make this all day trip given my hectic schedule in when it occurred to me that everyone is just blindly telling me to get my license renewed but no is telling me what the consequences of NOT renewing are, besides not being able to drive. Interestingly, the DMV site says that if you're license is more than three years expired, you have to take all the tests over, but otherwise says "it is important" to renew your license prior to its expiration, which is code which I was able to decipher with my extreme lawyer skills for saying there actually IS no punishment for not renewing on time. I called the DMV today to confirm that my deductions were correct, but I unfortunately it was 4:23pm and according to the recording, the DMV is only open during "normal business hours" of 8am to 4:15pm, which makes perfect sense.

As I was describing this to Megan and cutting and pasting the DMV link and asking her to analyze the language and see if she arrived at the same conclusion I did, she asked me why I didn't just go the DMV Express in Manhattan and get a new NY license, which I could do by going to this place with my passport, NJ license and my social security card, and they would confiscate my NJ license and issue me a temporary paper NY one and then send me a real license in the mail. I calmly explained to her that I was sentimentally attached to my NJ license, lost my social security card a while ago because I like to live dangerously and didn't want to have to not go to bars for two weeks or worse, go to bars and show the bouncers a folder of documents and explain that despite my deceptively youthful appearance, I really AM older than 21 and that I just have a temporary license. But beyond all this, a NY license would require me to sit for a new license picture, which I am not prepared to do at this point because my chin Botox has not fully dissipated and I need at least 2 weeks advance notice in order to ramp it up at the gym, so that my record of taking outrageously amazing license pictures remains unblemished.