I was at the Service Ontario government office, standing in the line of the dead. There were bodies everywhere but none of them were dead in the actual sense. We were dead, bureaucratically speaking – the depression-era lineup, obedient nobodies clutching forms, shuffling to the next available spot in the line, the stench of procedures and regulations everywhere, no eye contact, no EEG readings. Waiting…
After a while, the walls and the lighting meshed together, creating a soft hue of baby puke. Stay focused: I was here to renew my licence, not my humanity.
Moving to one of the service counters of the dead was the smiling woman. Why was she smiling, against such odds? This was no Gioconda, coy half-smile. This smile had a PhD in smiling. From corner to corner, the smile started in this office and ended somewhere around the edge of the known universe.
She handed her forms in and stepped in front of the camera.
"Ma'am, no smiling." A voice rang out with all the bellicosity of a Rhino protecting its young.
"You can't smile."
The smiling lady was flummoxed. "I'm not smiling", she said.
"Ma'am, no smiling", the Rhino repeated.
It turns out the government had not finished shrink-wrapping our soul and muting our humanity. Smiling for one's driver's licence photo was forbidden, even dangerous. It's important that your photo expressed all the joy of Charles Manson's mugshot.
Helter Skelter, mandolin version, was playing in the background.
The smiling lady kept insisting that she was not smiling. She turned to the crowd for help. Immediately I saw the problem.
Behold the face that launched a thousand plastic surgeons. Her face was not a face, it was a set of tupperware. Her lips (were they lips or stretch marks? did she give birth through the esophagus?) couldn't send the proper nerve signals to her brain, telling her "we are smiling, now we are not".
I had to help her. I suddenly remembered: Heat. Melts. Plastic.
Conveniently, the government office was located in a Canadian Tire store. I moved like a Gazelle. I lost my place in line and grabbed the most powerful blow dryer I could find – the Ferrari 3000.
I approached the woman's face with engines full. Her face began to droop. Oops. I turned the heat down. Some last minute sculpting and the lips normalized. She was ready for her closeup.
I smiled BIG.
For one brief moment, I felt alive in a government office.
