Highway Construction and Forms of Photo Identification

I’ve completely and utterly ignored my little baby blog here for a solid month – mostly because I was busy doing things like “Turning 22” and “Graduating College”, but also because I’ve been drunk for close to three and a half weeks now and in no condition to be around the internet/social media (those who follow me on Twitter would definitely agree with me on this point).  With that piss-poor excuse out of the way, I’m going to get right back into the swing of it by doing a double post/psuedo list of things that are once again slowly ruining my life.  This is not to be confused with my list of things that are slowly annoying me to death; they are very close in concept, but definitely not the same, even if it’s only by a matter of one or two degrees of shittiness.  No, these are two of the things which inspired me to create this very blog in the first place; things that make my blood boil into a fury of frothing red rage, that make me want to find a small, innocent, extremely cuddly puppy and brutally murder it via decapitation with an axe, that cause my heart to shrink into a shriveled black ball of nothingness so cold that a mere whisper of movement near it would shatter its icy emptiness into a million small shards of razor sharp pieces.  These are things at which I make this face:

 Essentially, this shit fucking sucks.  Let's do this.

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION 

Exactly.

It is my personal belief that highway construction is a psychological test for the general populace administered via state governments (and paid for by all taxpayers, but let's not even get me started on that shit) to determine whether or not patience still exists as a characteristic in today’s society.  Well, Government, I can tell you this:  It does not.  You can stop fucking with me now.

Every long-distance traveller has encountered at least one unfortunate instance of highway construction and the subsequent havoc it seems to wreak on some people’s ability to drive and/or operate their vehicle at even the most basic level, but just in case you need an example, let us consider the Garden State Parkway.  I spend a considerable amount of time driving up and down the GSP which means I have obviously noticed the intense “construction” occurring between exits 44 and 63, mainly because it has been 1. Going on for over a year now, and 2. Fucking up my entire life.  Notice that I put quotation marks around the word construction – this is because I have never once in the entirety of my driving career seen an actual laborer doing any sort of work on this 20 mile stretch of godforsaken highway.  Is this an exaggeration?  Yes.  Sometimes (very late at night on the third Tuesday of every other month) I do see one to three men donned in the signature lime green vest and hardhat out “on the job” (again, those sarcastic quotation marks), but these men are never carrying tools or operating any sort of machinery, and are almost always standing in a tight knit circle pointing at some random thing and engaging in a lengthy discourse about it’s existence.  Otherwise, they are just moseying about as though caught in the same directionless fog that Rob Kardashian has been meandering through for the past seven years.  Meanwhile, BACK AT THE FUCKING RANCH, I’m literally grinding the break pads on my piece of fuck ’94 Camry into a salty mist as I try to decelerate to a mere 15 miles per hour in order to avoid smashing into the line of cars (inevitably mini-vans with New York license plates) that is now completely stopped in front of me.

It's funny how I try to avoid crashing into slow-moving cars in front of me when in reality, the experience of driving below seventy on a highway makes me want to abruptly end my own life via any means necessary/available.

I’m really not sure of the exact happenings that occur in the minds of average individuals when the receptors in their eyes pick up the image of multiple traffic cones and transmit this information to the brain.  Personally, traffic cones lined up on the side of the road do not faze me, nor does the sight of a bulldozer, nor a blinking sign indicating a lane shift.  These things have no effect on the speed I’m travelling (90 mph) or my regard for general road safety (texting while driving while also being a woman).  However, from what I can tell of the normal person’s driving reaction to these features of highway construction, it seems that all sense of self and surroundings become completely obliterated at the mere presence of something fluorescent orange and cone shaped.  Have I confirmed this hypothesis via extensive testing?  Fuck no, I don't have time to give out a mental status exam to each individual idiot who believes the highway is a lovely spot for a leisurely Sunday drive, but I don’t see many other explanations as to why people begin driving like blind turtles dribbling shit from under their shells when they sense construction on a fucking highway.  IT IS STILL A HIGHWAY.  YOU CAN GO FASTER THAN FIFTEEN MILES AN HOUR.  THE GAS PEDAL IS THE ONE ON THE RIGHT.  I HATE YOU.

In further related news and also as a final thought on this topic, can everyone just learn how to merge already?  Jesus fucking Christ on the cross with a cracker inside of his holy little mouth, PICK A MOTHERFUCKING LANE and commit to it, or else return your license to whatever prize-laden Fruit Loops cereal box it is that you found it in before I fucking murder you and your entire family with a rusty sledgehammer.  Thanks.

FORMS OF PHOTO IDENTIFICATION 

A chilling photo of me lighting my community college ID on fire mere moments after finishing my last final.

Were you looking for a way to broadcast the fact that you’re not photogenic to one person at a time for the rest of your life?  Did your local Asian nail parlor accidentally wax your eyebrows so that they were uneven, and were you trying to commemorate the event by sealing a 2x2 photo of your skinny-browed self in durable laminate?  Do you hate yourself?  If you answered Yes to any of these questions, congratulations!  You’ll absolutely LOVE having a form of photo ID!!

This explains the importance of having a good eyebrow stylist, and also of having a mirror, acne-clearing facewash, and hair volumizing shampoo, but I guess that's just getting picky.

Throughout your life, you will accumulate more and more forms of photo identification, but none is more important than the driver’s license.  Your license is your main card – you spend 17 years (in New Jersey) waiting for the moment that you can finally step into the seventh circle of Hell that is the DMV and obtain your new pass to vehicular freedom, and when you turn 21, that shit becomes solid fucking GOLD.  Obviously, this puts an immense amount of pressure on the picture aspect of the license, and since the “people” (God damn, I fucking love quotation marks) who work at the DMV can only be described as miserable, impatient, rude, and obese, the time frame that you have in which to snap a quality photo is extremely limited.  The night before I was to make my big trip to get my license, I spent hours straightening my hair and practicing split-second poses in front of my bathroom mirror.  I tried on different styles of make-up, ultimately deciding on something I then referred to as “natural classy casual”, which I now know as “I just got this make-up from the dollar store and I’m concerned it might give me MRSA but I’m going to put it on anyway and also, I live with my dad so no one ever taught me how to do make up and I’m really just taking a wild guess here based on tips from America’s Next Top Eating Disorder and the E! Style report, which means I’ll probably wind up looking like Joan Rivers but slutever I'm 17 so I don't know jack shit about anything important.”  When I finally went in to take my picture, a tremendous black woman suffering from anhedonia as a result of years of ass-numbing work at the DMV was running the camera.  She told me to pose, and immediately snapped the photo before I even had a chance to put any of what I had practiced (which was not even remotely attractive anyway) into play.  Blinded by the flash and with my vision all blurry, she showed me a miniscule image of what would be on my license, and, frazzled, I told her it was good.  Ten minutes later, after I slowly regained my eyesight, I was holding my new form of identification in my hands.

75% sure this is my DMV lady.

At this point you’re probably expecting me to say something hilarious about how hideous I looked in that picture, but I’m going to disappoint you on that, just like I did with my dad the time I got shitfaced drunk and threw up all over my bed the night before Thanksgiving 2008.  I didn’t look terrible in that photo at all – in fact, I looked like a fucking fresh-faced daisy in that photo, despite my misinformed hairstyle and make-up choices.  It wasn’t until I turned 21 and retook my picture that I was bit in the ass by the forms of ID curse.  The photo of me on my current license is essentially of a new-born deer cross-bred with a fledgling, autistic serial killer.  I’m greasier than a slice of oven-baked pepperoni, and for some reason, I have side bangs, even though I have not cut side bangs into my hair since 2006.  I have no lips, uneven ears, and my beauty mark (mole) looks like an entirely separate person altogether.  

 

This photo ID thing would really grind my gears if I knew it was just me who looked terrible in these pictures, but fortunately for all of us, we (and most importantly, I) are not alone in this.  My friend Erin’s Costco membership card has led to several advertising agencies calling her about renting out her forehead as billboard space, and my boyfriend’s (yeah, we’re still dating even after this creepy post) student ID makes him look like Nick Carter circa puka shell necklace and spiky gelled hair.  Forms of photo identification are embarrassing for everyone, which I think is almost a glue (a very, very weak glue) holding us all together as a society.  If we can’t put aside our differences regarding who’s imaginary god is the most real or what the right gender is that we should all be fucking, at least we can come together on the topic of how shitty we all look in our licenses, passports, student ID’s, and gym membership cards, and you know, that’s actually kind of a nice thought . . . .

The only thing unbelievable about this image is the Native American on the bottom - are you actually trying to tell me that the white bitch in the pink dress wouldn't have killed off that poor kid with a blanket laced with polio?  Get real.

. . . . but nice thoughts and optimism concerning a piece of shit situation aside, having to carry around a small reminder of just how unattractive I can actually be really blows hot donkey dick, and is ultimately something that is slowly ruining my life.