Drivers license challenge

I have some notary business coming up this week. Most of the paperwork has been booked and the hard stuff is done but to finalize it all I need to get some documents notarized. So we scheduled a notary to come out to the house and quickly take care of everything at once. The notary only had one request at the time of signing and that is to provide her copies of our driver’s licenses for her files.

So I gathered up the licenses and went to scan them in the computer and print them out for the upcoming meeting. I paid no attention to my picture or the tiny details on each license and simply slipped them onto the scanner bed. On two levels this process amazes me still after nearly two decades. First, I perpetually find it amazing that average people have access at all, to inexpensive equipment that captures and reproduces images in such perfect detail and color. Second, the high cost of ink still frustrates me regardless of printer speed, brand or model. That inky irritation in combination with the clicking and clacking of paper handling feeders and rollers shifting, printing and spitting out NOISE still bugs me daily.

On the monitor popped up the enlarged image of my license to review prior to printing. Of course the image reproduction was flawless, but what I noticed was my weight. My face looks the same, however my weight is a full 15% heavier than just a couple of years ago. Even if I assume I had ‘fudged’ the number a little down when I originally got the license, it had to be at least a 12% up over a short time ago. Yeah I know I don’t feel as spry as before and my clothes all seem to have shrunk a tad, but I just hadn’t felt as unhealthy as that weight gain implies.

Sometimes it only takes something small to get you to wake up and look objectively at the direction of your life. We all have something that could probably benefit from a little introspection even if it is not displayed in living color on your computer monitor and drivers license. The trick of course is to START doing something to correct those little deficiencies, getting past them, and literally getting back to living a better life. So, I am now challenged to return my weight to the ‘official’ number noted on my drivers license. I still will not be any skinny mini marathon runner. But in the end, I will be well on my way toward positive self-improvement and hopefully better personal health. If nothing else, the notary will not need such a ‘fat’ file to store my license picture in!