Identity Redux

I usually enjoy getting my driver’s license renewed. I like to compare pictures and prove that I’m not getting older, I’m getting better.

Something went really bad when I went in to renew my license on Saturday. It’s the most awful picture I have ever seen. It’s a mug shot. It’s a mug shot of a seasoned criminal. I can’t show this in public! What am I going to say to whoever looks at it?

O, yeah, that was one hell of a hangover. (Even though I spent the night before watching old chick movies.)

That? That picture? Oh, it’s evidence for my malpractice suit on Botox injections gone horribly wrong.

What? No, oh no, that’s not me. That’s someone who stole my identity and tried to phony up a picture to look like me. Despicable job.

That really is a mug shot of me trying to steal Dentyne gum from the neighbor store.

I can explain that. Some really old, short, fat lady with no neck invaded my body. And I want it back.

* * * * * *

ARRRRGH! I’m stuck with this really awful picture for FIVE years. And the truly horrible irony of all of this is that I had the chance to renew online and keep my really great looking picture for another five years but I kept having trouble with my credit card billing address because I have moved but haven’t really moved and I can’t make up my mind whether to make Mechanic Man’s address MY address or to keep my real address as a place to temporarily go to on lunch hours and weekends. Now I have this truly ugly picture following me around every single solitary second of my life. For five years!

Obviously, the Department of Licensing did not get my memo on 60 reasons to be excited to be 60. They must have received one that said "there is only one reason for this person to look like an old worn boot, because she is ELDERLY, OLD, WRINKLED, and, well, REALLY OLD."

New Year’s Resolutions have nothing on the resolution I am making as a result of having my driver’s license renewed. Oh no. Now I am passionately and resolutely determined to change my identity. I’m going to lose 40 pounds and I’m going to join a gym and I’m going to get massages every other day and I’m going to tape my face up and back and go back in and have the damned picture retaken. Again and again and again until it looks like ME.

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