Vox Lucens

Today, our hero arose.  He went and compiled his weapons - a passport, a title, a utility bill in his name - and went to face the enemy known only as DMV.

Ah, DMV!  That giant among bureacrats, patron saint among inefficient morasses, guardian angel of all drab waiting rooms.  And when the little mechanical voice said, “A023 at Window Number 9,” our hero knew that every weapon at his employ would require the most skillful of weilding.

And each, one by one, was taken and assimilated by DMV.  Each accomplished its purpose, but none could deal the deathblow.  In the end, it came down to one weapon - the debit card.

Our hero begged.  He signed over a lien on the house he does not yet own.  He promised to donate his wavy locks to the California Department of Aid for the Hairless.  He spat upon signs that said “Threatening a State Employee is a Felony” and demanded justice and freedom.  All to no avail.

But in the end, debit card prevailed.  It was bereaved of its motive force, the green energy that powers its economical workings, but it prevailed, and our hero emerged with a small piece of paper broadcasting to the world that he had an Interim License to Drive.

–From A Pointless Oral History of One of Mankind’s Dimmest Luminaries

I didn’t bother, I’m afraid, studying the California textbook on driving.  Perhaps it was naive, but I assumed that since I had been driving for quite some time with a clean record, I’d be able to buzz right through a written test.  (Though the inner man chafed at having to take a written test, I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal.)

But when I sat down and started reading I was worried.  I didn’t know the answers.  I discovered, though, that the questions I didn’t know the answers to were based entirely on the fact that I’m just too good of a person.  I don’t drink, so the BAC limit just doesn’t matter to me.  I don’t smoke, so regulations on when you can smoke and drive just never entered my mind.

And as I sat there, thinking to myself that if I failed this test because I don’t drink and smoke, I was going to be rather put out.

It turns out, though, that California is strangely predictable on how it regulates drinking and smoking.  I found it rather ironic, though, even in my relief at passing, that while I got the questions about smoking and drinking correct, of the three I missed one involved a blind man in a crosswalk, one involved talking on a cell phone without a hands-free device (it’s more legal than I thought!), and the third involved how much information you have to give the imbecile that smashed his car against yours.

But this I can say, with a highly genuine sigh of gratefulness - it’s done.  I’m licensed and registered.  I need not darken the door of a DMV for a long while yet.

There comes a day in every man’s life when he looks back on the past and realizes its value on the present, when past traditions long abandoned are resurrected into glorious light only magnified by the passage of time. It is on such a day that our hero has now embarked, and as he assayed the traditional feast before him, he could not help but remember the wisdom that he had been taught: “And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your Taco Bell coffee, and to your coffee law books…”

–From A Pointless Oral History of One of Mankind’s Dimmest Luminaries

Back when I lived in Northern Virginia, one of my favorite food-related activities was to grab a trusted friend and head to Taco Bell for a two-man, Grande Meal eating show. (And yes, adding the Nachos BellGrande and the Mexican Pizza were musts.)

I will freely admit that it is a hard task to find a friend who is willing to trust you enough to subject his entire digestive system to the bombardment of such a feast, and it is for that reason that I have not attempted this glorious tradition since leaving Northern Virginian climes.

Today I was highly gratified to learn that I have not lost my touch. The Grande Meal still quakes before me…and quakes within me.

And as I add a big cup of coffee to the dozen pounds of I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Beef running through my system, I am amazed at what bar study can do to a man.

From the vast, frozen tundra of the wasteland called Overtime, he emerged victorious, triumphant, or at least, semi-lucid. And tired; tired as though the very tundra actively sucked the soul from the rest of the weary.

But the time touring the tundra was not a total loss. The emergent semi-lucid conqueror brought with him friends. Mere acquaintances going in, these friends will from hence be a source of constant companionship, for now, they are known by their nicknames. A friendship forged in the extremest of conditions on Mount Excel, each nickname holds a special place in the physical memory of my fingers. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, and especially Ctrl+Z, to you, dearest friends, shall be granted the keys to the kingdom.

–From A Pointless Oral History of One of Mankind’s Dimmest Luminaries

God is good, my friends, and actively pours out His blessing in ways that we can only imagine. Out of despair, He can work His mighty plan.

While more will come, hopefully in the near future, suffice it to say now that the banquet is over and I have only begun to dig out from the mounds of paperwork that success dumped upon me. The sheer amount of data entry has boggled my mind. But after a weekend in Pennsylvania with my family, I feel almost ready to tackle it.

What a joy to watch the doors open.

(The next post will be less cryptic, I promise.)

***UPDATE***

I forgot to mention that the Charleston Post and Courier did a little write-up on the banquet (it’s at the bottom of that page). That will help give you a little bit of the background I haven’t gotten around to mentioning here…

As once stood Horatius against the Etruscans, standing tall against the hordes facing the doomed bridge, stood Gabe against the Avatars. And like that ancient battle’s end, his arrow-riddled hulk now floats down the river, a shattered, silent witness of the power of numbers against courage, might against principle, and social networking against individualized communication.

How have the mighty fallen.

–From A Pointless Oral History of Mankind

I am not against technology, friends, nor am I unfamiliar with it. I first became a web developer before I was out of high school. I do everything but actually code my ministry’s website. I do everything for the website that you are currently exploiting. And I bet very few of you have ever been to a web developer conference surrounded by geeks, as I have. (It’s quite the experience, I can assure you. But I digress.)

So when I stated that I would not join social networking sites, I was not stating a desire to avoid technology or its advantages. At its very core, I wished to spite the screaming hordes of teeny-boppers worshipping daily at the altar of MySpace.

And now, now that the schemes in my brain require me to understand the machinations of modern culture, I have–again–fallen. Xanga was a foot in the water, this website an exciting open door of possibilities, but the Internet is like the Proverbial leeches, ever screaming, “More, More, More.”

It is on that basis that I say–under my breath, so no one will hear me–Facebook me.