Likely Normal

Nothing makes you question the meaning of public service quite like trying to obtain a simple document from your local government. Whether it’s registering your dog, getting married, or renewing your driver’s license, you’ll quickly discover that common sense is the first casualty in the war against red tape.

Take dog licenses, for example. What should be a simple transaction – “Here’s my dog, here’s my money” – somehow transforms into an existential quest. You’ll need three forms of identification (for the dog), vaccination records dating back to the Reagan administration, and a notarized affidavit swearing your golden retriever isn’t actually a wolf in disguise. By the time you receive the license, your puppy has graduated from obedience school and started a family of its own.

The marriage license process is even more absurd. You arrive at the courthouse full of romantic optimism, only to be greeted by a maze of paperwork that would make a tax attorney weep. Suddenly, you’re digging through storage boxes for your original birth certificate (the one your mother didn’t accidentally laminate in 1987), swearing affidavits that you’re not currently married to anyone in Antarctica, and trying to remember your third-grade teacher’s name for reasons nobody can explain. The clerk eyes your paperwork with the enthusiasm of a DMV employee counting down to lunch hour.

Speaking of the DMV, it remains the crown jewel of government inefficiency. Where else can you spend half your day waiting in line, only to be told you’re missing “Form 12-B, subsection C” that wasn’t listed on any of the seventeen checklists you consulted? The experience is so universally traumatic that strangers bond over their shared suffering, exchanging knowing glances that say, “We should start a support group.”

At the heart of all this madness lies the government’s unique talent for taking simple concepts and making them needlessly complicated. Forms are written in a dialect of bureaucratese that even linguists can’t decipher. Instructions contradict themselves with impressive creativity. And the fees – oh, the fees – seem designed to punish you for daring to participate in civil society.

Yet somehow, we all endure this nonsense with a mix of resignation and dark humor. Maybe it’s because misery loves company. Or maybe we’ve all accepted that dealing with government paperwork is simply part of the human experience – like death and taxes, but with more triplicate forms.

So the next time you find yourself trapped in bureaucratic purgatory, take comfort in knowing you’re not alone. Millions of citizens before you have suffered through the same ordeal, and millions more will after you. And if nothing else, at least you’ll walk away with a great story – right after you fill out the required “Experience Feedback Form” in quadruplicate.