Last week I went into the credit union to open a new checking account and I discovered that my license expired on Nov. 8 of last year. I would have gladly traded all the Outside magazines I get in the mail for a license renewal notice. BTW, in case you haven't seen it yet, Jack Johnson is on the cover of Outside. Again. Anyway, so that means I have to go to the DMV, or as Dane Cook calls it, "Satan's asshole."

Right now you're saying to yourself, "I renewed my license online." Well, good for you Bill Gates. I bet you do all your Xmas shopping on online too, but since my license was more than 60 days expired, the DMV required me to show face.

The urgency of renewing my license became evident the other day when I got carded while buying beer. I played 20 questions with the clerk at Circle K before $3.13 was exchanged for a 22 ounce bottle of Newcastle.

1. Did you know your license is expired? Yes.
2. Do you have a new one? No.
3. Do you have temporary paperwork? No.
4. Have you renewed it? No.

At question # 5 I started getting the shakes.

Under normal circumstances this interrogation wouldn't have happened, but the liquor store that Ryder and I walk to on warm and sunny afternoons recently got held up. It’s been closed ever since because the clerk got shot. In the head. The good news is he's still alive but the bad news is the trigger men are still on the loose.

That's how I ended up at Circle K playing 20 Questions. Eventually a second clerk stepped in and it became a good clerk, bad clerk thing. I must have answered at least one question correctly because the good clerk eventually took my money. I walked out into the cold night with a cold beer and a cold sweat thinking, "I really need to go to the DMV."

I'm a spur of the moment kind of guy so today I drove over to the Department of Motor Vehicles. As usual, the place was jammed full of people and everyone looked pissed. Occasionally, there was joy in the building, like when a kid would come out of the testing room with less than three wrong answers on his written test.

The kid sitting next to me made an appointment to take his second written test. He failed his first one after walking an hour one-way to the DMV. This time he got a ride from his uncle and the pair had already been waiting for over an hour when I sat next to them. 10 minutes later his number got called he jumped out of his seat to (most likely) fail the test for a second time because he was more nervous and sweaty than me trying to buy beer at Circle K.

About 5 minutes later they called my number, I paid my 28 bucks, walked over to the picture line, got my mug shot, and I was outta there in less time than it takes to race a 30+ crit. It was a miracle.

Nevertheless, I don't know which is worse - going to the DMV or racing a sub-60 minute criterium. This week I’ll have the experience of doing both. There’s a CBR crit on Sunday, but at least the Pro,1,2 race is 100K. That just barely makes it worth the drive to Dominguez Hills. At least I’ll be driving out there with a valid driver’s license.

If you think this blog was boring you should try racing a 100K crit…