Herculean Tasks.

We live in a technologically advanced society. Arguably the most advanced in the world. AND YET.

Getting a new drivers license today took 4 hours. An hour and a half was consumed by driving down to the DMV and discovering that they require Valid ID (my passport, which I have), and my Social Security Card (which I didn’t) and then driving home to get my Social Security card. Scarfing down a quick sandwich, I went to the Penn DOT website, where I discovered the document that specified precisely what forms of ID one needs to get a new drivers license.

Suitably armed with everything I needed (passport, social security card, birth certificate, several bills (those I haven’t had sent to Paytrust , which are useless for this exercise) and my checkbook, I drove back down to the DMV. The guard at the desk, a dead ringer for Idris Elba , handed me a little printed slip of paper with my number on it, and an estimated wait time of “1:05”.

An hour and 6 minutes later, I was presenting my forms and paperwork at the desk and asking the harried woman if, hypothetically speaking, any parking tickets I had in Massachusetts would effect my getting a new license here. “Nope,” she said, “I’ve already run the check, you’re fine.”

$31 lighter, I walked across the room, where another very nice woman asked me if I wanted to register to vote, walked me through the selection process on the keypad and screen in front of me, snapped my picture, and asked me to wait for 3 minutes.

3 minutes later, I walked out of the DMV with a shiny new Pennsylvania Drivers License.

All of which is to say: we have all this technology, and none of it prevented me from being dumb enough to drive down the first time without the myriad forms of ID I needed. Sheesh. I should write Alvin Toffler and Ray Kurzweil right now and tell them how wrong they are.