Dear Mahatma: I went to the grocery store the other day to buy beer. I turned 94 last March. I was carded and not allowed to buy the beer because my driver's license expired last March! The lady at the Revenue Office, where my daughter drove me later that day, said notices are mailed to the driver's address of record. I have not moved. A friend had a similar story last week. She wasn't trying to buy beer but rent a car. Does the Department of Finance and Administration still send out notices of expiration? If not, folks need to check their licenses. -- John
Dear John: Our roommate seemed to remember the department had discontinued such mailings; our brain is not so sharp.
So we asked department spokesman Scott Hardin. Sure enough the agency's Office of Driver Services stopped mailing driver's license renewal notifications on Jan. 4, 2018. The reason was cost -- $200,000 a year, he said.
A notification is available via email. Please register at MyDMV.Arkansas.gov.
Back to John, here's hoping he got his beer. As the philosopher said, there are only three kinds of undesirable beer: Warm, flat and none. And at 94, he's earned his brew.
Dear Mohandas: I experienced instant karma last Saturday. We were at Kanis Road and Shackleford Road. There are four lanes westbound there: Two left-turn lanes, one to go straight, one for right turns. We were behind a black-and-white SUV in the go-straight lane. When the light turned green a gomer in the left-turn lane goosed it and cut in front of the SUV. Within seconds an array of flashing blue and red lights lit up the scene and the SUV pulled over the gomer who cut him off. -- Old Aggie
Dear Aggie: Karma does happen, just not often enough. We have been karma-ized from time to time on an interstate highway. Some fiend will blow by at 90 mph and then, gloriously, we will see him a couple of miles down the road pulled over by a state trooper. Sometimes, for sure, the arc of driving turns toward justice.
By the way, our dictionary defines a gomer as someone who is inept or stupid.
Dear Mahatma: Now that driver's licenses are good for eight years, be thankful that requires renewal only four to eight times for the rest of your life. Going to the Revenue Office seems to shorten your life. Want proof? Compare your driver's license photos over time. -- Esteemed Counsel
Dear Counsel: Are you crazy? It's insane to compare those photos.
Time's inexorable passage already reminds us of W. Shakespeare's line.
"Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
No sense adding insult to injury. Or fury to reality.
Fjfellone@gmail.com
Metro on 05/04/2019