Lady Destroys DMV Office With Verbal Kung Fu- Living In Fictionarium World? 2

  

 A simple system, designed so that even the thickest dolt can find their way into the labyrinths of normal life to become the taxable product that their parents knew that they were born to be. 

photo by @therealpaul

Beaulah's Epic DMV Rant Chapter 2. Fictionarium

 Beaulah worked in a place that had only a few easy rules, where things were meticulously arranged in a logical, orderly fashion that actually had reason and made sense. She was the town's librarian.

With untold lengths of brown hair prodigiously hidden away on the back of her small head, small glasses, neat tan loafers and generally appropriate attire, Beulah Chandler had no previous police record or even so much as a parking ticket when she appeared at the counter of the Department of Motor Vehicles that Monday. 

  
Beulah's car had no license plate. She always kept her little car polished and sparkly clean, and when a cop sees a clean car with no visible license plate, it looks like it's probably a newly purchased car- fresh off the car lot, no obvious source of revenue for the police. Drivers with no plates tend to have good excuses ready.  

Everybody knows that if you don't have plates yet, you'd better get them soon. If stopped, the driver's explanation for the missing license plates would likely be poorly rehearsed but legitimate, legal within a certain number of days. And obviously no decent criminal would drive around the town without at least a fake license. Clean cars with no plates such as Beulah's were boring, even to those people who had nothing else to do with their time: people like the ultra-bored cops of the quiet town of Hill Valley. 

 
With this illusion at work, Beulah never had plates, and never got pulled over, not even once.

"Number seventy two?" This was a routine question from the low-tier organs working the desk at the DMV. Everyone knows that you take a number from the little red dispenser at the front, sit down and wait for them to call it out. A simple system, designed so that even the thickest dolt can find their way into the labyrinths of normal life to become the taxable product that their parents knew that they were born to be.   

Beulah, however, had walked off of the worn paths in the cheap linoleum floor and around the dispenser because she knew that the gadget was for paying customers, and Beaulah was not a paying customer.  

Beaulah had entered the DMV building without a sound. The flimsy building- which ordinarily shook with the slightest movement- was strangely still. Her stealth was an asset to her might, but her library logic and quiet words were about to become a sensation. Beulah Chandler had just wisp'd right in to the DMV like a fair breeze, but when she began to speak she became the most solid fixture in the entire building.   

 "I'm not number 72. I'm not a number. I'd like to know if you can tell me, why I should attach this plate to my car."

This wasn't the usual answer at all. Meg, the DMV lady, blinked. Time to show some authority.  

Speaking loudly so that her coworkers could hear, Meg declared "Because the reason you want that on your car is so you won't get pulled over for having no license or registration. If you just bought the car, you've got ten days to get plates, afterwards of which it's a sixty dollar fine the first time if you do get stopped."

 A quiet titter went about the room, as life crept merrily along in the DMV office.  

Beulah also blinked. "You have somewhat explained how the plate's absence benefits the police. However, begging your pardon, you didn't answer my question."  

Meg quickly put her hands onto the countertop. She had dealt with all sorts, but this just beat all.

Using her authority voice, Meg spoke clearly, "Okay, one: I don't know if I understand the question, and two: I really can't say what it's for unless it's in case your car is stolen then the police can find it I guess. I don't make up the rules, I just work here. The DMV is a state owned public service, we just regulate licensing."

Meg now frowned as hard as she could with a hiss from her nose. "Now do you need to get those tags renewed, or do you want to let someone else go ahead of you?"

Meg was the center of attention, and seemed pleased with herself. She felt like she had handled it professionally or, as they say, 'close enough for government work.' 

  
She didn't know that Beulah had barely gotten started. Holding up a picture ID driver's license, Beulah continued: "I'd like to know if you can tell me why I should carry this."

Someone in the room laughed loudly, and this was the moment when someone else started recording the now-famous scene from the adjacent counter with their phone. Meg noticed she was being recorded and, blushing, changed her tone quickly. "Honey, I'm afraid I don't know what you're trying to ask me."

A uniformed policeman entered through the front and the dutiful red number-dispensing gismo and it's supporting stand rattled a little sigh of relief. The flimsy glass entrance itself shook excitedly, shuddering the floor. The timing of his entrance was as if someone had actually called the police, but Beulah ignored him and proceeded to speak freely.

"We all live here together and we don't have much trouble, and we all know that most people are good at heart. I know that good people will naturally do the right thing. It's not even your fault that you can't answer my question, since we've all been taught that there's nothing wrong with being forced to comply with attaching these metal signs onto our cars." 

 
Meg expertly frowned as Beaulah continued. "If ever questioned, it will likely be argued that the proceeds from forcibly selling these plates to everyone goes as a tax towards a strong Hill Valley Police Department. In return, it could however also be argued that this appears as a business who's product is so useless that it must be forced onto people, lest they be violently assaulted and kidnapped by the police- a business that employs a police force to collect money for protection from the police so that the police force can be paid to forcibly collect money for this protection."

Eyebrows were beginning to raise now, but Beaulah wasn't finished- her soft voice now filling the room with clarity.  

"It could be argued that such a circular extortive operation is precisely the work of gangsters and their thugs, but this sort of treachery here makes the common gangster the better person, for the gangster at least admits that such extortion by any name is wrong, instead of pretending that his armed thugs are offered as a public service."

A long-haired kid in the back of the room said "Yeah!", breaking his gaze from his phone, and then people began to cheer and clap as the room erupted into a standing ovation, which was a first for this room.  

Beulah held forward the license plate. "You may give this to the police. If your henchmen are so interested in licenses, they can keep mine. The rest of the people in this city, the law-abiding inhabitants of this city who have paid for this fraud with such religious conviction for so long, having decent hearts and good will upon each other, will surely follow their hearts by no longer supporting this wholly criminal enterprise when it is logically seen for what it really is."

For just a second there was silence, but it was interrupted by the harsh clatter of the metal license plate on Meg's countertop as Beaulah got to the point. "As you were unable to supply a decent answer as to why I should keep this absurd metal plate on my car, I'm returning it." 

(Chapter 2 to be continued in upcoming post)

FICTIONARIUM INTRO

Chapter 1.

*Beaulah the librarian would obviously be able to direct us to the essays of Lysander Spooner as her inspiration for the above rant.