A long line to Purgatory

lewleadbeater.com

notes from the edge

Home

Email Me

				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
A long line to Purgatory				June 25, 2008

I knew it was going to happen, since my five years were almost up.

Each day with quavering hands I’d approached my post office box, turned the key with earnest dread, pulled out the mail and prayed that it wouldn’t be there. But last week it arrived. Shock and awe.

In order to renew my driver’s license, I had to go to the DMV office to undergo a vision test and have yet another mug shot taken that would make me look as though I had just emerged from a three day binge at Bugsy’s gin mill.

I understand that the Catholic Church has decided that it’s time for the notion of Purgatory to be rescinded. Well, not so fast, Catholic Church. I’m here to tell you that, though Dante wrote his “Divine Comedy” in the early 14^th century, his concept of Purgatory is alive and fully functional in the form of our local DMV office.

Dante’s Purgatory is where the proud, envious, wrathful, slothful, avaricious, gluttonous and lustful souls go to be purged of their sins. There, in this region of seven terraces, they do penance to expiate their naughtiness on earth. After completing the course, sinners finally climb up to the Garden of Eden and eventually ascend into heaven.

I have no idea where I fall in this category of misfits, though I suspect at some point in my life I’ve been guilty of all these sins. All I knew was that I wanted to do the penance as quickly as possible, and that meant getting in line at 8:25 a.m. in front of an office that opened at 9.

Ahead of me was a group of four rather young men who kept going back and forth to the 7-Eleven for hot dogs and other snacks. Obviously gluttonous types.

One was joined by an apparent girl friend, with whom he carried on rather too lasciviously for public consumption. No doubt lustful, if not avaricious.

Behind me was a man, claiming to be a doctor, who was shouting obscenities at some poor bloke who decided to have a smoke while he waited. “You’re killing yourself and me,” he shouted. “Shut up, you hothead,” countered the smoker. Talk about wrathful.

Things quickly calmed down when the gatekeeper to Purgatory, a middle-aged woman who had obviously taken classes in DMVspeak at the Tower of Babel, came out and announced several things no one understood. There was something about a straight line and standing behind a carpet. She also cautioned that we might not be called in the order of our place in line, but rather according to the sin we had committed.

Unfortunately, the young men ahead of me were going to have to wander around in several terraces before shooting up to heaven, since they didn’t have the documentation required to get ejected from Purgatory. So laden with sin were they that they had to leave and come back with more information before they could even begin their penance.

Meanwhile, I was being told by the gatekeeper to “stand behind the carpet,” which, I finally realized, was a small rug in front of her desk. Clearly this was hallowed ground which could withstand the impious feet of only one sinner at a time.

Finally I got my pass into Purgatory and was told to begin my penance by sitting and waiting for my number to be called. Like the slothful in Dante, I circled the terrace I thought I belonged in, bent over double in humility, and sat down.

Then what sounded like an angelic automated voice from heaven called out my number and told me I would be “served” at sin station number two.

Trembling all the way and mustering all the humble I had in me, I slinked up to station number two and was told to read a line of teensy-weensy letters that were of a size requiring the visual acuity you would need if you were trying to avoid running over an amoeba on the highway.

But I read them successfully, the reward for which was forking over $38. And, “Have a seat over there in the envious section until I find someone to take your picture.”

More humility.

By now all my fellow sinners were seated in their various terraces waiting for their purgatives to be announced. There sat the doctor, the smoker and two of the young men without documentation. All there, circling, sitting and hoping to avoid the fire that tortured the lustful among us.

Finally the gatekeeper showed up to take my picture, which indeed makes me look as though I’ve just had a horrible LSD experience.

After sitting and doing penance for 10 more minutes, I was finally handed my pass to the Garden of Eden and heaven. I had survived Purgatory and was the proud (oops!) recipient of a new license.