Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.
— Honoré de Balzac
Five.
At every step in the months-long process, the clerks provided verbal and printed instructions to follow, both of which were always—always—wrong.
The procedures were Byzantine and no one I encountered knew what he was doing.
Complexity and frightening incompetence prolonged my agony—although I must admit I grew fond of the hot dogs.
(There was a long queue at the entrance to the building, where a vendor sold Polish dogs from a cart. Two dollars bought you a hot dog, chips, and a soda; by my third trip, I’d become a regular. Mo and I were on a first-name basis.)
The expression red tape enjoys a six-century history.
It originated in the 1600s, when nobles and lawyers began—literally—to bind batches of paperwork with red tape.
To open a batch, you had to "cut through the red tape."
HAT TIP: Ann Ramsey, no friend of red tape, suggested this post.
My ordeal's origins were evident from the start.
Although the DMV used yellow tape to demarcate the queue, the underlying problem was red tape.
"Red tape has killed more people than bullets," novelist Ben Bova once said.
It almost killed me. (The hot dogs didn't help.)
The expression red tape enjoys a six-century history.
It originated in the 1600s, when nobles and lawyers began—literally—to bind batches of paperwork with red tape.
Red tape went from literal to metaphorical use three centuries later.
Dickens, Carlyle, Longfellow and other writers all used the expression in the 19th century to deride bureaucracies.
During the American Civil War, bureaucrats in Washington, DC, took red tape to new lengths, using roll after roll after roll of it to seal envelopes and bundle documents, according to the National Archives.
In fiscal year 1864 alone, the War Department purchased 154 miles of the stuff—nearly twice the length of Delaware.
HAT TIP: Ann Ramsey, no friend of red tape, suggested this post.
