A Long Hard Look...

"DMV Under Siege," says Dickland

RENO--Chaos erupted earlier this week at one of the oxymoronically named DMV Express offices when an irate elderly customer allegedly walloped a clerk with her cane. The assailant was tentatively identified as 84 year-old Maybelle Fogerthwaite. Ms. Fogerthwaite, who apparently suffers from impatience as well as an arthritic hip, told Tarnish that she had waited in line for over three hours before getting to a service window. When it was finally her turn, the Department of Motor Vehicles clerk stated that she was going to lunch and would be back in an hour. She ordered Ms. Fogerthwaite to return to the end of the line.

Witnesses say that Ms. Fogerthwaite responded to the clerk's demand by striking her in the head with her cane. This elicited cheers and shouts of encouragement from the other customers. Ms. Fogerthwaite was taken into custody and charged with Assault on a Bureaucratic Flunky, which has a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison. Hours after the incident, DMV senior bureaucrat and generalissimo Kirk Dickland made a public statement. "We cannot have government employees assaulted by ruffians, even geriatric ones. I hereby declare martial law within the confines of all DMV offices. Only through threat of direct and serious bodily harm can we maintain the proper relationship with the general public. Coercion is no longer sufficient. If it takes a few old ladies being beaten senseless by DMV security forces to maintain bureaucratic inefficiency, then so be it."

When generalissimo Dickland was asked by Tarnish if such measures were really necessary or if they were just his knee-jerk reaction when faced with public criticism, he evaded the question. After the interview, however, the reporter received an answer in the form of a parking ticket for $1,754.68 for a 3 1/2 minute violation. Tarnish is appealing the ticket.