My Chauffeurs are getting weary and whispering that they are going on strike.   I am acting allot like Driving Miss Daisy.  I am getting short, and disgruntled at all the little things.  A bit cynical regarding “The Law”.  When did I start just calling this large disorganized and inefficient body within our government, The Law”?

Like so many of us from the 50’s when that Utopian time of dreaming up a version of America that felt just as good to conjure as what we now call the Cinderella Complex, I have been duped.  That picked fenced yard, 2.5 children, a two car garage, big screen TV, back yard BBQ’s, early retirement, the 401K, cocktails at 4pm and being on a bowling league that was supposed to bring serenity did not. This ideal vision spoon fed to us on Leave it to Beaver, defined prosperity and happiness. Those were the days that set us up for what we are now calling “The Fall”.  Those were the illusions that set us up for alcoholism, the death of creativity and vague illnesses.  The happiness pill we were sold did not in fact deliver.

So. there came this list of immutable forces we could count on to define our parameters for us.  We needed various patriarchal father figures to help guide us when the things we thought would pan out in fact did not.

I had an image of THE Law much like I did of The One and Only God.  That kind of wording that covers a pervasive body of energy  eventually extended to The Doctor, The IRS, The Military etc.  I never referred to my indispensable relationship with my hair dresser as, The Hairdresser, The Chef, or The Teacher.  Each of those stations in life had a name, a face a personality.  What was different about The Law?  The Law had no face but conjures up an ominous presence as if Moses were right in my front yard delivering the 10 commandments to my neighborhood.  Oh and we wont talk about those men in black that strike fear in the strongest of us.  The IRS, which if you have not read up on the IRS, has no legal right to force you to sell your house in order to pay up!

My point?  I am finding that all these omnipresent institutions are smoke and mirrors to the nth degree.  But boy do they have power over my psyche.

As the driver’s license saga continues to unravel I am left like a shell on the beach, washed and tumbled and sanded down to a smooth surface, but not really the shell I started out as.  My lawyer has not found her way in the system of clerks any better than I attempted to.  There were no breadcrumbs on this path that lead to anything other than the next wicked witch who basically said, “I have no clue what to do, so I think I will eat your for lunch.”  My last bastion of possibility is currently that my three inch thick case is on the bench of a Denver District Court Judge to possibly rule that I might have what I want:  To be able to drive.   But, odds don’t look good.

So my point is this.  I have been the perfect citizen, following the letter of the Law, going down every dark alley I was told to go, taking fingerprints so I can be deemed a safe citizen and nothing has happened to say that The Law is on my side.  In fact, those inside the legal system have suggested that my only course of action is to…go outside the system.  What can I say but..fine….then that is what I will do.  I will do exactly what The Law asks me not to do and take the Law into my own hands.

Let me say a little about the reality of not driving.  Our culture is based on mobility.  My lack of mobility has created huge changes in my life.  Let me say first that I could hitchhike, I could become a recluse, I could pay for people to deliver groceries to my home, I could walk 17 miles to the Greenlife Grocer, I could ask the doctor to resume house calls after 50 years and I could hire a cab to take me to doctor’s appointments.  But, since we are not a communal culture where there would be many people who could share all these life issues with me, I am not in a position to do many of these things at the age of 61. And what if I had an office job and did not work from home?  OMG how would I get to my 9-5 job every day, pay the bills and feed the kids?

I pay huge amounts of money to fly everywhere and pollute the skies which I am opposed to.  I have missed necessary doctor’s appointments due to not being able to get there.  I have had to take cabs to get my groceries, when no one is available to drive and most importantly I feel a hostage to our system.  A system that is not interested in me as a person.  And quietly, inside ,as I remember the Thrive Movie and read up on the ID Act it feels as if that might be the point.  To keep the sheep of our society hostage and immobilized.

So I am flying, right now, at 33,000 feet, to Denver to meet with the last person capable of helping solve this problem.  A Marshall who will take my fingerprints and then I can start the process over, as if the last ten years of being who I am and driving like any pimply 16 year old are non-existent facts,  because The Law simply does not know what else to do with me and does not care to solve my little problem.

Then I will go to The Governor’s office with my file an sit and wait to say “ This needs to be fixed and let me tell you why in no uncertain terms”.  Then I will go the Channel 9 to give then a story about the Denver Court system and the ID Act that would paralyze a woman with a Harvard degree, who is articulate, has the means to fight the machine and does not have four kids under the age of 5, or a sick mother living at home and working three jobs to make ends meet like a huge portion of our country who could not take 5 months to deal with The Law.

So, here I am stepping outside the system, I wish The Law had proven to be a place that had our rights as people in mind, at heart and at the core of what they did to serve the masses.  But alas, none of that is true.

Wish me well….. I am about to land….somewhere!

PS. For those who have not followed this saga please go to “Older Posts” and read the initial explanation of what took me off the road as a gypsy.  The post is “The Gypsy Joke”, Nov. 11, 2011