I don’t know about you, but I hate getting the photo taken for my driver’s licence renewal.
When the dreaded envelope arrived in the mail this year I thought… Already? Didn’t I just have a pug-ugly pic taken for the MOT? — that would be Ministry of Transportation for you non-Canucks.
I desperately scanned the form looking for an avatar option. There wasn’t one. A box for an optional retinal scan? Fingerprint? No. And no.
So I developed a plan. A little foolproof plan.
~get hair done
~zip over to the drive test centre, obeying all the road rules of the land — zip
~have a glamour shot reasonable facsimile of my pug taken
~pay up, and get out fast
~no freaking out involved
It went like this:
1. I had my hair tweaked for 1 1/2 hours before going to the Driver & Vehicle Licence Issuing Office/Bureau de l’immatriculation et des permis de conduire — really, that’s what is says on the form — so it wouldn’t look like something out of a Tim Burton movie, which is what my current pug shot looks like.
2. Instead of going on my birthday, I went early so I wouldn’t have a freak-out on my birthday if something went wrong. Also, so I could feel smug about being ahead of deadline, which spoke to the writer in me like a clarion call.
3. When the clerk asked me to step back behind the magic line for the photo — look at the yellow dot — I felt all hair-tweaked and confident. I stepped back to the counter. This was going to be a quality driver’s licence photo.
4. Then the clerk asked me to step back behind the line. Again. Uh, oh. I could feel a little sweat collect at my newly-tweaked hairline.
5. The clerk had me remove my specs — because they were causing g l a r e — and now… now I will spend the next five years looking like something out of a Tim Burton movie AND I can be freaking out pre-birthday, the day of, and on into 2014.
6. My licence pug doesn’t look like my passport pug, which doesn’t look like my health card pug, which doesn’t look like my gym…
Dear MOT,
Could we please have an avatar option, retinal or fingerprint scan option by 2014? I’ve got my avatar all picked out.
Sincerely,
Elen Grey 
I just saw you last weekend and you looked nothing like the Corpse Bride Though I’d like my hair to be such a lovely shade of periwinkle 😀
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If only I had the periwinkle hair! Unfortunately, without my specs, I had her eyes.
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The upside down head picture made me laugh out loud.
It was a brilliant plan though! Sorry that it didn’t pan out.
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You know what they say about plans…. Yes. I almost wish I had that pic on my new DL. Almost.
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How funny! Yes, I’ve had the same thoughts, especially since we got the Governator here in California: why can’t we look *nice* on our driver’s licenses? Is it too much to ask of a bureaucracy?? (I guess so.)
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I’m considering a stand-in next time….if they don’t have that avatar option going by then. 😀
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hmm, avatar not a bad idea… but then i’d have to agonize over WHICH avatar, might be as hard as deciding on a tatoo (and i’ve been threatening to get one since i was a teen, ten years later i still haven’t settled on a design)
ak
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Well, if we’re going to entertain ourselves, how about an avatar with a refresh, so you can have more than one? I like that. Is anybody taking notes here? 😉
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I hate driver’s license photos. For my first one, I chose not to smile because I’d seen everyone else’s hideous, smiling photos. I looked like a crack addict.
Next time around, I smiled. Not too shabby.
The last one I had, my eyes had gone sour enough that I had to wear my glasses. I hate that one (plus it made me feel like I was getting old).
Then I heard that some states were making laws that said you can’t smile on your driver’s license photo because it screws with face-recognition software. Boo!
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You can’t smile on Canadian passports either. At least not at the time I got mine. We all look like felons. I don’t even know what it looks like yet. Well, I know it won’t be good. Ugh.
And you have such a great smile, too! 🙂
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