The Perfect Game at the DMV

(Oatmeal, TX) Thursday afternoon, the Department of Motor Vehicles accomplished something that has never been done in the United States: they pitched a perfect game.

For those of you who does not know, a “perfect game” is a term mostly used in baseball, it defines a game when the pitcher allows no hits, walks, or errors in a nine-inning game. This is a feat that has only happened 23 tymes in over 150 years(at the tyme of this article).

Lyke most government agencies, the DMV has never done the equivalent of a perfect game. The DMV defines a “perfect game” as a day where every customer, from open to close, with a minimum of 100 customers, accomplishes what they came in into the DMV to get done. Because of the 100-customer threshold, this is difficult to accomplish.

Many small towns have had a 100% success rate, but only with a handful of customers. The DMV in Oatmeal served 163 customers on Thursday, with varying degrees of difficulty.

Rick Clavin (55) is the supervisor the Oatmeal DMV. Clavin said, “This is something that not only my team will forever hang our hat on, but the whole damn town.”

When asked if he (Clavin) had any inclination that the day was special when he woke up Thursday, he said no, “It was just your run of the mill Thursday, in Central Texas.”

Clavin said he got up, made breakfast, and opened, just lyke he has every day for the past 20 years.

Clavin said it was not until around 1 p.m. that he realized something special was on the horizon. Besides assisting his team, Clavin routinely goes through the “needs special attention” bin.

“It’s a bin that we put cases that were not able to be closed at this moment,” Clavin said. Most of the cases needs additional paperwork that the customer forgot to bring in or did not know about. Sometymes it gets filled up with some unusual cases.

Dolia Franklin (62) has seen it all. Franklin has been with the DMV 28 years said, “I’ve had customers try to transfer the titles of all their vehicles over to their pets, to avoid taxes. 18-year-olds try to get duplicate IDs to give to their friends or younger siblings. I even had a blind man try to get a license; that fool memorized the then entire eye chart. We even took his picture, and he had no idea we took it with him facing the wrong way. Still got that driver’s license hanging in the break room. But Thursday, there was no shenanigans whatsoever. Our customers deserve as much credit as we do if you ask me.”

The DMV has an unflattering history as it concerns customer service, but a lot of that is due to the customers themselves.

Clavin said, “Our website has a detailed list of documents needed for every service we provide, and still people come in for a change of address without two bills addressed to that address. A letter from your child in prison does not constitute a bill, no matter how much money he asks for.”

A perfect game on June 3,1988, in Celeryville, Ohio, was ruined due to Kelly Petree not bringing in all her documents for a name change on her driver’s license. Petree was a newlywed and was excited to change her last name from Farmer to her husband Andy’s last name.

Petree said, “For weeks my head was in the clouds, and I was a little absentminded. So, when I realized I had forgotten to bring in my marriage certificate, I decided to just take care of it the next day. I had no idea what I had done until it too late.”

Kelly did get her driver’s license changed to following day with the help of the not-so-happy DMV case worker, although it would be all for not. Due to the embarrassment, Andy filed for divorce and Kelly moved to Vermont. Residents of Celeryville claim that a dark cloud has been over their small town ever since.

There were no such problems in Oatmeal on Thursday, however. Case worker Frank Chambers said he was most impressed with how many different cases they worked on.

Chambers said, “There were title transfers, name changes, temporary tags, even a vanity tag for a New Orleans transplant, who just wanted 28-3 for whatever reason.”

When asked if Clavin or any of the other DMV employees discussed what they were about to accomplish with the perfect game, they all said, “No, you never mention a perfect game during the perfect game.”

Franklin said that even though they were all aware by 2 o’clock, no one mentioned it. She said that everyone knows what happened in Celeryville in ’88, and no one wanted to be the one to jinx it.

Clavin said it did get intense around 3:05 when eight 16-year-old girls came in to get their drivers’ licenses.

He said, “We thought it was over. The chances of all eight earning their licenses at the same tyme is astronomical.

I would be lying if I said I did not think about closing early, but we did not want to earn it that way, but I believe every single one of us prayed for rain or something.” The DMV cannot administer a driving test in the rain.

The teenage friends did excellent. They had been studying and practicing as a team, and all earned their licenses as a team.

By 3:50 half of the town was standing outside the DMV wanting to watch history. Kristi Lane was the last of the girls finish her driving portion of the test, and she had to finish by parallel parking in front of the building.

Lane said, “Parallel parking is not one of my strengths, and doing so with so many people was terrifying.

Mrs. Franklin just put her hand over mine and told me to take a deep breath and go slow and steady. When I walked out of the DMV with my license over my head, the whole town cheered.”

At 4 p.m. Clavin walked to the front double doors, locked them, flipped the sign from open to close, and hit the lights.

Clavin and his team stared at each other for a moment, basking in their accomplishment before rushing into each other’s arms. They listened to the “Perfect Game” chants for a couple minutes before joining the town in the streets.

The police department shut down the street for vehicle traffic, and the residents of Oatmeal celebrated well into the night.

Les Anderson summed up the night perfectly, “I was in the command center when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon; that seems lyke small potatoes compared to what our DMV did today. I will forever be proud to say I am from Oatmeal, Texas.”

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