This morning I had to go to the DMV because my driver’s license is about to expire. I could have made an appointment for allegedly faster service, but believing that DMV appointments are for wimps, I decided to just go for it.

Things went well with no problem. Even without an appointment, I was in and out in about 15 minutes.

But they really push the appointment thing. Several times while I was there, if a person seemed bothered by anything, the usual response he/she got was “Did you make an appointment? You’ll get better service if you make an appointment.” (which is a lie, by the way. I’ve made DMV “appointments” in the past, and they were meaningless.)

Anyway, they really roll out the red carpet for these “appointment” people. In this case, they LITERALLY roll out a red carpet – there are two lines you stand in, one for appointments and one for people without appointments. The line for people with appointments literally has a strip of red carpet on the floor, while the other regular line has nothing.

So repeatedly I heard (and saw) as the friendly DMV lady said to people, “Do you have an appointment? Great, go stand on the RED CARPET.”

So even though in most cases, DMV appointments are rather meaningless, they can now honestly say, “Hey, even though our appointment system isn’t necessarily faster or better than our other system, we definitely try to roll out the red carpet for those people.”

**Note – the above Red Carpet photo is NOT the Torrance DMV office. It’s a red carpet on the steps of the Los Angeles City Hall, meant to merely convey the idea of a red carpet for purposes of this blog.