Year: 2008

CANTO XIII: In most of the United States, when it’s time to renew your driver’s license, or get new tabs for your plates, you might go to the DMV (Dept. of Motor Vehicles). Not so in Michigan. We go to the Secretary of State—known to Dante Alighieri as the Fifth Circle of Hell. It is here that Phlegyas ushers wayward travelers to their rightful place: waiting in line for eternity among the wrathful. A soup kitchen queue for the Damned, if you will.

Should you be fortunate enough to have your number called out in under a decade, one of Lucifer’s infernal minions—known as a “state employee”—sizes you up and determines your fate. Most of us have only come to renew a drivers license, a matter these brutish she-demons take quite seriously.

They begin the torture by asking you several personal questions (height, weight, etc.) the answers of which are bellowed out for all to hear. This is meant to humiliate you as their cringe-worthy breath peels back several layers of epidermis from your face and neck.

The most intolerable part for me was watching her huge, warty meathooks curl their greasy talons around my proof of insurance. The resultant grease spot smelled of Cool Ranch Doritos and brimstone. The stain, I am led to believe, is Satan’s own Mark, signifying me as the proud owner of a new license.