a different kind of Golden Ticket

I spent two hours of my life today waiting in line to renew our car tags. When they finally called my number, I felt like I'd won the lottery. Yet despite not planning to spend my entire afternoon at the courthouse, it was really an interesting and enlightening day....

I was fascinated by all the beautiful faces around me: people of all ages, races, and walks of life waiting together.

There was absolutely no way to hurry the process.

You could watch the "newcomers" as they paced and resisted the process at first. They were checking their cell phones, surfing the net, complaining, and watching the monitors constantly for their numbers to appear. Those of us who had been there an hour or more exchanged knowing glances as we watched them. Our cell phone batteries had long since died. Our purses were already re-organized. Our checkbooks were quite well-balanced. All we had on our hands was time, time, time....

I watched one lady sleep quiet peacefully while sitting straight upright and was totally impressed. I calculated the height of the woman's heels across the aisle - nearly three full inches. I marveled at the young teenage couple finally get their toddler son to fall asleep. I read every sign around me and enjoyed some quite wonderful artwork by Goodwill Industry employees and local young artists.

Every once in a while, someone's number would be called and rather than irritation and jealousy, we all felt genuinely happy for that person (mostly). Every once in a while, someone would ring the Golden Bell by the exit to signify they had received excellent service. Every once in a while, a seat would become available near the monitors and rather than rushing to fill it, we would look around and wait for an elderly person to have a chance to sit down first.

Every once in a while, I was truly thankful to be there in that flourescent-tiled room with that odd band of brothers and sisters - strangers - but who I knew as neighbors for just a bit.

It was two hours I would gladly spend again in just the same way....