On the DL

I waited at the DMV yesterday for a grand total of twenty minutes to get my driver's license. They asked me about my height, weight, organ donor status, and made me read line 5 on their little eye chart. While I waited for my picture to develop, I chatted with a woman who I ride the bus with. She was waiting for his son to finish his second attempt at the road test to get his first license.

It sparked the memory of my driving test. My sixteenth birthday was on a Sunday, so I had to wait until the DMV opened on Tuesday to get my license. My father, the saint that he is, decided to pull me out of school at precisely 9:00 AM, when the doors of that hallowed dispensary of freedom opened. We were across town at the DMV in less than three minutes. Papa wanted his boy driving by lunchtime, which I was.

There was only one hang up. The written test went well. I only missed two questions, one concerning bicycle hand signals (on a driving test, come on) and the other concerning a road sign that I had never seen before nor have I seen since. I still don't even know what it was for.

They graded the written test, and in a matter of minutes, I was sitting comfortably in the warm, purple upholstery of my father's classic 1998 Ford Taurus with optional tape deck and automatic transmission. My hands quivered at ten o'clock and two o'clock as the inspector went around the car, checking brake lights, turn signals, and the horn. When he finally got into the car, he told me to relax and take the car out of the parking lot slowly. I did. He told me to make a left. I did. He told me to pull into a driveway and make a three point turn. I did. He told me to pull along the curb and demostrate proper uphill parking procedure. I said, "Excuse me?"

For those that are confused at this point, let me fill you in on a little bit of my great state's georgraphy. The state is bordered by five other states, of which you can see all of them on a clear day, from anywhere in the state. Fucking balls, it is flat here. You have about twenty minutes to get ready for the myriad tornadoes that hit this place because you can see them on the horizon coming for you. There might be these fabled 'hills' that people park on in California and Utah, but they sure as hell aren't here. I politely informed the DMV Administrator of my dilemma as I pulled alongside the curb.

"Sir, why in the fuck is this on the test?" I asked. "There are no hills within a hundred miles of here, let alone hills that would have a street to park on. Seriously, when in the fuck am I going to need to park downhill in this town, or this entire fucking state for that matter?" I had recently acquired my teenage angst and mastery of the f-bomb in the face of authority. DMV guy wasn't phased.

"Just complete the procedure." He said, calm and collected with his little clip board. I fucked it up.

Luckily, he did not fail me. I was a mediocre driver and that would suit our great state. After a quick congratulatory lunch with my Father, I dropped him off at his office and sped out of town, under the instructions that I had to make it to Peoria and deposit a secret manila envelope full of checks at a bank before it closed at 5 and back to the office before he got pissed at 5:30. It was a two hour drive each way. I still don't understand why my father would have a bank account so far away, but, he still does, and I no longer question it.

I tore ass down the highway, not letting the needle drop below 80. The only face I saw was in my rearview mirror:



Suffice it to say, I quickly lost him in the neverending backwash of burnt out factories and narrow alleys of Decatur, Illinois. I managed to drop off the deposit and was back in time to pick up my Father well before six that night (with minimal police involvement).

Fast forward to six months later. My Father, tired of me taking his awesome Ford Tauras out every night to try to score some of that proverbial teenage drama queen tail at the local coffee shop, wakes me up at 3:00 AM one morning.

"Son," he says to me, "it's time to get your own car."

"But Dad, the lots don't open until at least the sun comes up...why are you waking me up so early?"

"Get dressed and grab all your cash, you are getting a car today." so I did, and he drove me out to behind a building that I had seldom need to visit, not having any bills in my sixteen years that could not be paid off with cash or mowing lawns.

Behold, my first pimp ass ride:




That's right, kids, a 1976 CJ-6 Mail Delivery Jeep. I drove on the wrong side of the car for the first year I had my license. I slapped a sticker of Hobbes on the back and to this day still wonder how I never got an STD in high school. There was just enough room in the back of that thing to snuggle with a loved one, as long as you didn't mind sharp, cold metal rubbing against your shoulder blades. Ah, the memories...

Anyhow, while lost in such nostalgia, I had managed to collect my license and was walking back to the fiancees car (yes, I drove to the DMV on an expired license, come get me pigs!) when I heard a voice coming from nowhere in particular.

"You fucking bastard!" I looked over my shoulder, thinking that one of my former love interests from the Mail Jeep of Love had recognized my now portly self and was making an introduction I could understand. "How dare you call me! It's over! It's been over for three days! Why don't you just give up already!"

I located the voice. It was a youngish girl sitting in the passenger seat of a pickup with the windows rolled down. I sat in the fiancees car with the windows down and filled out the organ donor card while I listened in on the conversation.

"What do you mean you don't understand what you did? You have been nothing but a prick to me since I started dating you! You bought me dinner every night, but it had to be from where you wanted to go. You would get up early in the morning to go to work and not wake me up to say goodbye, or I love you or anything....The ring?! The fucking ring!? You woke me up and gave it to me when you knew I had class at 9:00 the next morning. You selfish prick. I don't care if you worked a double shift. I already sold the ring to help pay for the cost of me moving out..."

Just then, some gentlemen got into the car next to this scorned lover and she shut up immediately. As I drove off, I thought about many things, but mostly, I thought about how good life is when you've jumped through all the hoops you need to for the day with a couple of hours to do absolutely nothing and not get your ass chewed for it.