No one likes the DMV.
But on the island, even getting your car registered is a story worth telling.
On Friday morning, I sat in the front seat of the car I had just bought while Hilly drove east.
In my lap sat a manila folder of carefully-organized documents: a lease with my name on it, a title with the fresh embossment of a notary’s stamp, and a myriad of other papers necessary to finally, finally get my little car “island official.”
We were headed to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles1. I was not excited.
I thought back to a few weeks earlier, when Hilly and I had sat at the bar with our friends (and salsa instructors) Jennifer and Garincha. The discussion turned to “island-isms” that I, as a newly-minted islander, would have to face in the coming weeks. My highest priority at the time was to find a car—I had sold mine back on the mainland, deeming my zippy little hatchback with heated leather seats as better suited for Midwestern winters, not the humid, pothole-riddled island.
I told Jennifer and Garincha as much, and Jennifer laughed and offered up a cautionary tale about the BMV. “There’s this one man who works there,” she said, twirling pasta on her fork. “He’s…surly.” She told me a story about driving a car that she had just purchased to get inspected and having to deal with the aforementioned surly man.
“He barks orders at you, and if you get them wrong, he treats you like the stupidest person in the world. And if you talk back…well…your car isn’t going to get registered that day. Or ever. I’m not sure because I kept my mouth shut.”
The idea of keeping my mouth shut when getting berated by a man on a power trip struck fear into my heart—after all, I’m terrible at not snapping back when someone is rude to me.
But at that moment, I didn’t have a car, and I didn’t have to worry about the Autocrat of Automobiles. I put it out of my mind, telling myself that surely, surely that same guy couldn’t be working when the day arrived to get my own car registered.
Despite growing up in a series of small towns throughout my youth and early 20s, when I moved to St. Croix, I didn’t immediately recognize how small the island really is.
Geographically speaking, the island is 28 miles long and 7 miles wide. It covers an area of 84 square miles (in contrast, St. Louis City only covers 66). It takes about thirty minutes to drive from one side to the other--unless traffic is held up by a loose horse or two long-lost friends who decide that the middle of the road is the perfect place to catch up.
The island is rugged, wild and expansive in its topography, but when it comes to the interpersonal aspect, it is decidedly insular. If you stay on St. Croix long enough, people will start to know you—if not by your name, they’ll know you by your car, the path you walk when you’re out for a stroll, or the job that you do.
If, at the end of a long day, you start to tell a story about a particularly rude cashier at the grocery store or one about the guy down the street who owns 16 dogs that bark at a rate of 45 woofs per minute, it’s entirely likely that the person listening to your tale will say, “oh, I know who that is.”
That’s how small the island is. Small enough that there’s no need for six degrees of separation. It’s more like two.
So I shouldn’t have been surprised when, on the day of my BMV visit, we pulled into one of the two stalls at the inspection, uh, shelter and out walked a very…surly-looking man.
He was stocky, short in stature, and his face had that pulled quality of someone who spends a lot of time grimacing.
He swung his arm around wildly in a circular motion, gesturing us to pull up further. Suddenly, I was glad that it was Hilly behind the driver’s seat, not me. My palms began to sweat. I felt like I had in the moments before I took the ACT in high school. Though I knew what was on the test—turn signals, high beams and reverse lights—in the moment, everything I knew about this car and driving in general flew out of my head.
Hilly, ever the charmer, immediately sensed this man’s cloudy demeanor and turned his likeability factor up to eleven. He rolled down the window, flashed his winning smile, and said, “How are you, sir? Glad it’s Friday?”
The man didn’t even look at him. “Give me your documents,” he said.
I handed Hilly the folder. Everything was in there, including a few duplicate items and information that we only needed for the registration portion of the process, not the inspection we were currently facing. Hilly reached inside, beginning to shuffle the papers. The man saw his opportunity to gripe, and pounced.
“You come here and you aren’t even prepared. Not even prepared! You drive up to my station and waste my time! Give me your documents!”
By this point, any doubts about whether this was the same grumpy man Jennifer had faced over a year ago were gone. Hilly began to get out of the car, hopeful that this would help. It did not help.
“Did I say to get out of the car? You mainlanders, thinking that you can do whatever you want.”
Hilly got back into the car, silent now.
“For the last time, give me your documents!” I took the folder and handed it out of my window to the man, fearful that, if I didn’t, he would burst into flames.
“Finally,” he said, turning his back on us. He began to shuffle through the stack. A few tense moments passed, and I watched him out of the corner of my eye—I was pretty sure that any direct eye contact with him would turn me into stone.
His back still to us, he began to rattle off commands.
“LEFT TURN SIGNAL!”
“EMERGENCY BRAKE!”
“WINDSHIELD WIPERS!”
It reminded me of the old-school game Bop-It—if we didn’t react fast enough, we’d lose and have to slowly reverse out of the BMV, our tailpipe tucked between our legs.
Thankfully, I’m partnered with someone who stays cool in moments of stress. Hilly breezed through each of the steps (I helped by punching the emergency flasher button—Punch It!), and finally, the man thrust our manila folder back at us…now, with a very important slip of paper stapled to it.
This was our ticket to ride. Well, almost. There was one more step in our BMV adventure, but at least we’d gotten over the troll’s bridge without losing much more than our dignity.
With the proper documents in hand, Hilly and I backed out of the tiny shed (shockingly, Surly Man did *not* wave goodbye to us) and drove approximately 30 feet over to another small cluster of trailers.
The narrow buildings reminded me of teaching and the sad, isolated classrooms relegated to the outskirts of a school campus. We walked up the wooden steps and stepped inside Round Two of the BMV Experience.
A long swath of plexiglass stood between us and the handful of workers, their faces barely visible behind their computer screens. A carefully-placed garland ran the perimeter of the front desk, reminding me that it was, after all, December. A chorus of “good mornings” echoed throughout the tiny trailer, courtesy of the folks who sat awaiting their own ticket to ride.
We walked over to the window labeled with the number 1. Hilly, a little miffed that Surly Man had been impervious to his charm, decided to try his luck with the expressionless woman who sat at the desk.
“I just want to know if I can get one of those Charm Pops!” he exclaimed, pointing to the half-filled bag of lollipops that slumped behind the woman’s chair.
She stared at him. I laughed nervously.
“License and documents, please,” she said.
I handed them over. She rifled through them and tapped a few keys on her computer.
“Take a seat. They’ll call you when they’re ready.” She paused. “There’s a basket of candy over there,” she added as an afterthought. “Don’t eat it all.”
Hilly grinned. Victory. He made a big show of going over and choosing a strawberry Charm Pop. I tentatively took a cherry one, half expecting someone to pop out and tell me to get the hell out of this trailer—no license for me.
We sat and waited. Hilly slurped his lollipop. I chewed mine up anxiously.
Official-sounding stamps began to fill the room. Hilly looked at me and leaned over, his sucker stick dangling out of his mouth like a skinny cigarette.
“That’s the sound you want to hear.”
My name was called. I stood. The moment of truth was upon me.
I walked forward, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I waited for the agent behind the desk to deliver the bad news that I would have to perform no fewer than fifteen arduous tasks in order to be worthy of driving the pothole riddled roads of St. Croix. I waited for my precious manila folder to catch fire and turn to ash, rendering all of my documentation useless.
Instead, she handed me a temporary tag, charged me $140 and sent me on my way after telling me to come back in three months for my permanent VI license plates.
Hilly didn’t even have a chance to put a dent in that candy basket. The island BMV was that fast. From start to finish, we were only there for 25 minutes.
As we walked out into the morning sunlight, I thought back to all of the mundane, colorless DMV experiences I have had in my adult life. They all blur together, a compilation of faceless people, beige walls, stress, and long, long lines.
But today? I don’t think I’ll ever forget the surly man, the lollipop basket, or the unlabeled trailers that actually house one of the most important government agencies on the island. And most of all, I’ll never forget how…easy it all was, despite my fears otherwise.
Everything here is a story, I thought to myself. Even the BMV.
Just when I think I have the island sort of, kind of figured out, it surprises me. The stories I’ve known for years—like how registering your car will go—are being rewritten, island style.
St. Croix is keeping me on my toes.
And I kind of like that.
What unexpectedly thrilling stories have come out of pretty mundane moments? What old narratives have been turned on their heads lately? And bonus: does your DMV have a Surly Man at it too? Share below.
Hope you enjoyed this tiny glimpse into island life. If you want more of these narrative-style pieces, my paid subscribers receive one every Friday.
Even though I keep forgetting that the holidays are almost here (85-degree temperatures and sunny days will do that to you), the lights that went up around the island last weekend are helping me remember that 2022 is winding down.
What a year it’s been—one of massive change and a whole lot of love. Thanks for reading Everyday Woo and being a part of my very magical year.
That’s right. The island has a *bureau* of motor vehicles, not a bland ole department.