I would have given it 5 stars as most of the employees we met were friendly and some even comically entertaining during their daily social routines with the public. The only exception was for the guy guarding the written test room yesterday. Yeah, I know how many people probably want someone to help them cheat on their tests, or to just give moral support while they try and pass a very important step in their lives, but here at this door is a very temperamental, bully of a guy, who should dispense his nastiness in smaller doses for more appropriate occasions. The DMV numbers game was straight forward; stand in line, get a number, then wait and watch the monitors for it to come up and tell you which window to report to. My 83 year old mother was determined to get her drivers license renewed even though it came due during her recovery from hip replacement surgery.This is real life, people, that DMV renewal can sometimes come up at inconvenient times in your life. My mother is a very proud, skillful driver who got sidelined with one of life's challenges. As she has no computer at home to practice the driving test on, she just studied the good old fashioned way with a booklet saved from a past DMV trip. She pushed her rolling walker through that door with apprehensive determination. She was hoping to win the right to get back in that driver's seat of freedom when she is physically able to do so. Yes, I saw the sign at the testing door that said, "No Visitors", and after the "guard" confirmed I could not proceed with her, I obeyed him at my own Mother's risk. He could not possibly be blind to the walker helping her stand up?! I told her to just let me know if she needed any help sitting down to take the test and, most importantly, getting back up after she was done. Those little DMV chairs are lower than most and I had already helped her up from one of them when her number appeared on the monitor earlier. I watched her wait in the first line inside to get a paper, "large print" test, (Thank you DMV!). I watched her slowly, gingerly, manage to work her way down from her walker into that little chair at the table where she was to take the test. I should have been able to help her with this in the first place, mister security guy, what if she had fallen? I kept checking through the window and door every few minutes to see if she had finished her test and need me to help her up, but the young man at the door had finally had enough of my peaking in. With no ounce of politeness, respect, or for that matter any concern for my Mother's wellbeing, he insisted that I wait where I could no longer see her? I referred to her health and requested his assistance. He replied that he would help her if she needed it. Now people; did he really think I had some way of helping her cheat on that test from across the room with my eyes? Would I actually even want to? Did he just take a dislike to the way I talked, the way I looked, my gender, or my age? Was it just that he wanted to show his disrespect to me in order to validate and prove his domination and authority to any woman, man or child who enters the Carmichael DMV? I don't know, but when my smiling, very happy Mother came rolling out of that room later, I could only congratulate her and ask if that same security guard had helped her get up from that chair. "No", said she," it took me a while, but I just went slowly." She was triumphant and I was relieved. Nothing could dampen the joy of that little victory for her after a long life of large and small steps, of victories and defeats . Next stop, an early birthday celebration where not one employee at the Black Angus on Greenback Lane was rude or denied me the right to keep my frail Mother safe. read more