Apparently, miracles do really happen. Moses parted the red sea. Jesus walked on water. And now, after nineteen and a half years, my daughter finally got her driver’s license.
When I picked her up and took her to the DMV for her appointment, getting her license was not a forgone conclusion. She has had her permit for a little over twelve years (okay, eighteen months, but still) but she hadn’t had many opportunities to get behind the wheel and practice driving. Knowing the rules of the road isn’t enough, she still needed to be familiar with how to steer a car.
EM2 is a bright kid, but you can’t outthink a speeding semi when it’s travelling in the wrong lane and headed right for you.
We arrived at the DMV and were instructed to drive our car around to the back where behind-the-wheel assessments were taking place. I was told to remain in the car with EM2 until her instructor showed up and asked me to step out. We pulled up to the curb behind the building and waited behind another car already in line.
A man stepped out of the building and approached the first car in line. He was a pleasant looking guy with completely white hair. I don’t think he was that old, maybe in his thirties, but I imagine getting into the passenger seat and letting panicky teenagers drive you around town all day long might tend to prematurely age a person.
If I had to make a list of the absolute worst jobs in the world, jobs I would never want to do, conducting behind-the-wheel assessment tests would definitely be on that list. All day long, you survive one harrowing trip after another. The moment you escape from one poorly-piloted, metal death box, you have to climb into another one.
I imagine it must be like working in the military as a mine sweeper. You take every step hoping that you can locate a potential problem before it blows up under your feet. Eventually, you’re going to miss one.
I think I would rather be handed a box full of grenades and told, “We think these are duds, but just in case, why don’t you take a hammer and bang on each one of the them to make sure.” At least I wouldn’t see the end coming.
EM2 looked at the kid with the white hair and said she hoped that he would be her instructor. He seemed nice, and she was concerned that if whoever evaluated her was intimidating, she might get too nervous and fail the test. It was at this time, a big, unhappy looking dude, about six feet, five inches tall and weighing almost three hundred pounds walked up and told me to get out of the car.
If I hadn’t already been expecting something like that to happen, I would have thought we were being carjacked.
The guy didn’t smile once as he introduced himself and told me to go away. EM2 looked at me with a panicked expression, and I just shrugged. “It will be fine,” I told her, knowing full well that I was lying.
I stood on the sidewalk and watched as EM2 was asked to demonstrate her knowledge of the various levers and buttons in the car. At one point, the evaluator saw me watching and said, “You’re too close to the car, you need to move further away.”
I suppose he didn’t want me close enough to talk to EM2 during the initial phase of her test. Although, I don’t know what he though I might say to her.
“Make sure you don’t hit another car when you drive out of the parking lot. We don’t want that to happen twice, today!”
Or maybe, “If you run over a pedestrian, make sure you move the car off of the sidewalk before the police show up.”
Two minutes later, the evaluator climbed into the car and EM2 drove them out of the DMV parking lot. I sat down on one of the most uncomfortable, concrete benches I have ever had the misfortune to experience and waited. Less than fifteen minutes later, EM2 was back and, most importantly, the car was still in one piece and the same color all over.
The evaluator walked away, looking upset. But, to be fair, he looked that way before he got in EM2’s car, so I didn’t worry too much about it.
My daughter walked up to me and said, “He told me he had some concerns,” then she started to cry.
Okay, that was a bad sign.
When she calmed down, she told me that she had passed the test, but she had missed every point she could possibly miss and not fail. She showed me her score sheet and, sure enough, there were a lot of red marks. But, she passed!
So, ummm … yay?
As we walked back to the car, EM2 handed me the car keys and told me, “Here. I don’t want to drive anymore, today. Can we go get something to eat?”
As I drove us to a restaurant to celebrate (I suppose that is still the right word), I told her she should have waited one more year before taking her test.
“Because I would have had more practice?” she asked.
“No,” I told her. “Because after your test, I could have bought you a drink. You could probably use one, right now.”
I know I certainly did.
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