Finally, A Victory

I’ve been engaged in a long-running skirmish with the DMV. Whenever I get my picture taken for a new license, I try something minor to add a bit of flair to my picture. I always get shot down. On my last attempt, I crossed my eyes ever-so-slightly, and the photographer went ballistic. She shot up, put a hand on her hip, and barked “That is not going to work!” I was forced to go home and shave off 2/3 of my goatee. I came back and managed to get a photo with a thin mustache that made me look like a sex offender.

It was an unrewarding outcome, more rueful compromise than victory.

But a guy in the Czech Republic has won a huge, unequivocal victory in the battle against administrative humorlessness. Lukas Novy managed to get his picture taken with a spaghetti colander on his head. How’d he do it?

Lukas claimed to be a “Pastafarian” whose religion requires that he wear a pasta sieve at all times. And Czech officials ruled that turning down his request would violate the country’s religious equality laws.

Humor and religion under the same roof? Talk about a church that you’d actually want to join.

Pastafarians hold that an invisible alien made of spaghetti and meatballs created the universe after drinking heavily. The church (called The Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster) arose in response to claims by Intelligent Design proponents in Kansas that an “unseen power” (ie God) and not evolution directs life.

I need to try this, but it’ll be a strain. According to the article I read, another Pastafarian in Austria took three years to get the picture he deserved. Well, no worthwhile struggle for justice ever comes easy.

Someday I’ll walk into the DMV, ready to win. And when the grumpy photographer takes my picture I’ll be singing: “Pasta-mon vibration, oh-oh, pasta-mon.”