No Good Deed Goes Unnoticed

Let me lay this down for you. The ability to follow through the consequences of this tale will be a feat on your part, and an exercise in brevity on my own.

I waited almost one full year to change my driver’s license to my married name. I vaguely remember “attempting” to perform this ID swap on the occasions when I was able to leave work a little early. However, terrible obstacles such as shopping at Super Target and Pier One seemed to throw themselves haphazardly into my path.

Okay, brevity.

I did it finally. In August I DMV’d my morning. I walked away with an expired license (they punch a hole in it, give it back – blah ditty blah), a yellow carbon copy of a state government designed form folded to the size of my license, and a license sized civil service yellow (not in your Crayola box) colored envelope containing the proof of my “in limbo” identification status.

Four days after the above listed items were issued to my flighty self, I lost them. I returned to the DMV (read: glutton for punishment) to obtain a new copy of The Carbon Form. I moved forward with proof of my existence nestled securely in my wallet. Remember, though, that I lacked the “photo ID” that is currently so necessary in these United States.

The DMV informed me that my new license would arrive eight weeks from the original date of filing. I was booked to fly to Denver approximately eight weeks from the day that I filed for a new license. I considered the state government shut down in July. They were probably still trying to catch up. Having been a civil servant myself at one point, I also considered the network of paper that defined bureaucracy.

I wasn’t going to get my license in time. No way. No how.

Having just moved within the past two years, any trace of “old” identification had gone missing. My passport, now a mythical item that I think I had once but cannot prove as much, could not be located. Old licenses from other states had been either disposed of or buried so deeply within my stored paperwork that they proved impossible to find.

I wallowed in thinly veiled self pity for weeks before my departure to Denver. I replayed the day that I lost my tiny government issued packet of paperwork: I had walked a block from my office in downtown Minneapolis to the nearest Barnes and Noble. I had the tiny envelope of critical items when I left my desk, but failed to find it upon my return. Let’s see, I thought, I dropped my ID on the street in downtown Minneapolis. It will never be seen again. I have provided a whole new identity to some miscreant individual who surely intends to sully my already crappy credit history with fraudulent charges at Rent-A-Center.

And so it went for a full eight weeks, as I tried to prove my identity on several occasions with my wee yellow piece of paper and my work identification badge. It worked most of the time, but I was left frustrated and surly on a couple of occasions in which my paperwork did not do the job.

I also found myself haunting our mailbox a la Charlie Brown. I walked back to our front door each time I did not find what I was looking for; just as dejected as good ol’ Chuck when it came to the little red haired girl on Valentine’s Day.

The date of my departure loomed closer and closer, until I was finally forced to pack my bags and head for the airport, steeling myself for the cavity search.

Fortunately for me, I was only subjected to The Wand at the airport here in Minneapolis. In Denver on the way home, they accepted my yellow scrap of crap, my work ID, my marriage license and my birth certificate and zipped me right through security. My relief was palpable.

A week after I was home, I received my new Minnesota driver’s license in the mail. All possible tragedy having been avoided while I functioned without it, the only thought that I had when I finally received the item was, Of course it’s late. I was able to ditch the tiny envelope and move on with my life.

But wait. There’s more.

Two weeks after receiving my new license, and a full eleven weeks after I had filed for a new one/lost the old one, my mailbox came forth with a surprise: my lost envelope. Yes. The tiny civil service envelope containing my old driver’s license and my original yellow slip had been sent to me.

I was astounded.

A Good Samaritan – nay – a SAINT had taken the time to pick up my documents off the street. Not some identity theft stealing miscreant, but instead a concerned citizen. How many feet had kicked my envelope? How many gusts of wind had launched it to land at the feet of this stranger? What day did this do-gooder slip it into a postal box? Had it been the same day? Weeks after? I will never know.

All the pre-flight worry, the anger at myself while realizing that I had also somehow lost my passport, the traditional “if I could, I would kick my own ass” attitude that occurs when I lose something important all meant nothing. Losing my driver’s license in the first place meant nothing.

It all boiled down to this unexpected gesture of kindness and honesty. In a city of close to three million people, a good deed is a treasure. It is an affirmation that cynicism need not prevail. It is a reminder that amongst all of our daily angst – mine being the situation I created when I lost my license – there are undercurrents of kindness that exist when we least expect it. Rest assured that my amazing proof of this is getting filed away – just in case.