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Yesterday I went to Hattiesburg, the booming bustling metropolis north of me, to the Mississippi Highway Patrol office to get my driver's license renewed. It was 3:40pm. Took a number at the door. Mine was #83, and the place closes at 5pm.
This place is always crowded to the gills. People from other countries holding sheafs of papers and looking apprehensive. Three people from India. Lots of Mexicans. People from China. Some pre-teens signing papers, having their thumbprints recorded, having photos made. They were getting a state issued ID card, the man next to me said.
Plastic chairs. Dirty floor. Errant flies darting around. Noisy--despite a sign that said "Quiet Please." An employee griping about a stopped up toilet. Constant ringing of the phone. A big sign "No Credit Cards, No Cell Phones." Everyone was shuffled through pretty fast; in about an hour #83 was called and I stood in front of a blue background and a photo snapped.
Friends, I had prepared for this one. These mug shots always make me look like a cross between Ma Barker with colic and the Pillsbury dough-woman. But today, I had a good hair day. I had put on eye liner till I looked like one of those ancient Egyptian murals. I had practiced different smiles all the way up in the car.
It's vain--but dragging out a driver's icense with an ugly mug on it every time you pay with a check is embarrassing. But this one turned out to be the best license photo I'v ever had taken. Thus mollified, I went to eat. Shoney's was just up the road, and there was a sign out front "New On The Menu-Reuben Sandwich."
A Reuben is my favorite sandwich. I walked in and asked for one without looking at the menu. Time passed. I could hear black girls in the back talking loudly and whooping it up. Finally Reuben arrived. Corned beef tasteless. Sauerkraut tasteless--it has to have a little tang to it, darn it. Cheese there. No Thousand Island dressing. But most egregious was the bread, thick sliced white bread.
Horrors! A Reuben must be on rye (or my personal favorite, pumpernickle.) In a blindfold taste test, I couldn't have picked out that Reuben from any other sandwich, it was so bland. I don't reccommend you spend $7.50 for that. Then the bathroom. Dirty floor, unkempt, uncleaned, two sinks, one with a leaky faucet that ran a steady stream of water. Won't be returning to Shoney's ever again,--and still searching for a good Reuben sandwich in South Mississippi.
Susil
license scene.