Licensend to ...

Yesterday was the last day of the maximum amount of time I was promised I'd have to wait for my license. I called around 11 to see if it had gone through, and it was still in pending status. I played naive, and inquired if I had filled out all of the paperwork correctly, ie, why the hell is it taking so long.

It's funny, with every time I have to deal with the licensing office, I find them incredibly nice. Like not just friendly, but extraordinarily nice. I find it surprising considering the reason for my application. I guess I just expected some level of sass from them, but no. They're lovely.

She agreed that I've waited long enough, and gave me the phone number of the guy who is responsible for it. I called him a number of times, then reluctantly left a voice mail. I was hoping to charm him in person. But my voicemail was sufficient. He returned my call within an hour and told me that there was an unusual backlog in the system. He said he didn't know if it was because of staff vacations, or because of the big festival we just had (a week of our whole city just being drunk, and no work gets done), but there were 284 people in line ahead of me. These aren't just escorts though, it's anyone who needs a criminal back ground check for their business license, such as contractors and what not. I still don't know why it takes so long. You know when you get pulled over that cops are checking out everything they may need to know about you.

I asked him escorts would need a criminal check and I told him the theory Joon and I had (as mentioned July 12^th). He explained that if I were to go to his house, there is a level of trust there that I wouldn’t steal anything. If I had theft or fraud on my record, I would not get my license, whereas if I had a DUI, no worries. The redundancy of it was lost on him. However, I did find it weird that he used “You” and “I” as examples, rather than the hypothetical “One” or “They”. That got a little awkward.

I was able to head down to the licensing office that afternoon. The background check has not been done, but he waved his magic wand, and approved me anyway. If something came up, he would pull my license. The office was busy but the line was moving fast. There was a father and son in line behind me, and the son was asking why there were so many people there. He was around 11 or 12 years old, and his dad explained to him that if someone wanted to renovate their basement, or build a deck, the plans had to be approved, or if someone wanted to have a really big party in a public place, they would get the permission to do that here. So badly I wanted turn around and inform the child that it’s also where escorts would get their license. I just found the idea of this hilarious. I said nothing, I just pursed my lips and kept my laughter to myself. 

I have my license now. I still haven’t written up my profile yet. I should get on that. I also need to blur out my face in my photos. In theory I will put myself on the board for Monday. I bet I’ll find a reason to be busy though. Part of me is looking forward to going back to work, but another part is a little reluctant to do it, and really nervous. Who knows though. It could be dead. I know it’s dead at work. As I mentioned, we just had a really big festival, and everyone is really tired, and really broke now. Who knows.