IN QUEST OF THE PERMIT SAGAI've held off on this post for a couple of weeks because of my fear of being politically incorrect and to protect the feelings of the one who the story is about. Well, I came to realize that I am seldom politically correct and my wife gave me permission to talk about my daughter, who the story is about. Just in case you start to think about labeling us as bad parents, my daughter also thought that this would be a good post.
Well, the most coveted right of passage in the life of a teenager has arrived in our home: the acquisition of the Driving Learner's permit. You would think that this would be a simple case of walking into the license bureau, paying the money, taking the test, and then walking out 5 minutes later. But...oh no, the process is meant to inflict pain, and in our case possible dismemberment.
I, being the less intelligent parent in our home became the designated chaperon in this process. Process, in this case, by the definition meaning: eternity and eternal torture, just in case you didn't know where I was going with this. My daughter, bless her heart, worked hard in getting ready. She studied the book, religiously, and could answer any question that I could throw at her out of the Driver's License Handbook.
The first time that we went into the Driver's License Division (DLD), she walked nervously up to the counter. The guy simply said in his mechanistic voice,"Do you have your application, birth certificate, and social security card?" Well, unbeknownst to me, she only had two out of three. The application was the easy one, we had to fill it out before we got into line, where we waited, it seemed, like forever before we got to the counter.
The counter guy, not missing a beat from his monotone delivery then said, "Do you have a passport? Do you have a military ID? Do you have a death certificate? Do you have a notorized copy of form xyz of the penal code relating to the capture of endangered species?" or something like that. My daughter answered, "no" to each of these rapid fire questions. Then in reminiscent form of the infamous 'Soup Nazis' the counter dude said,"I can't help you...NEXT!"
As we walked dejectedly away, I simply asked my daughter if she knew that she was supposed to have those documents. She said that she knew they were needed but thought it was silly to have a birth certificate because her presence there proved that she was alive, her student ID showed that she was a sophomore, she could tell them her date of birth, and she had her social security number memorized. That seemed like a good enough explanation to me. Still, I suggested that we make sure that we follow the suggestion of the State and bring in those things next time.
It took several weeks before the next time came around. There were a few false starts as she would set a date and then later cancel because of nervousness about being prepared for the test. Finally, though, we did set a date and I planned to stick with it and not give her a chance to back out. It so happened that the date fell on the day of the worst snow storm of the year. Regardless, we were going to get this done. I figured that with a storm like that, the lines had to be short. I'm all about not waiting in lines, regardless of how long it took me to get to the line.
The night before, I made sure that she had all of the required documentation. I had her put it all in a protective folder and placed it in her backpack. That day I gave myself a lot of time because of the storm and drove out to the high school to pick her up. She was nervous but excited to take the test. We drove at a snail's pace across the valley to the DLD. It took us about an hour to drive 10-15 miles. Just as we were nearing the DLD I asked her if she had all of her papers. She opened her bag and then announced that the papers weren't there. The only explanation that she thought possibly could have happened was that she left it all in her locker at school. So we turned around and crawled through the weather all the way back to the high school. When we got back to the school, the door was locked, and just as we were about to walk away, some kid came and opened the door. To our relief, the paper work was indeed in her locker.
We finally arrived at the DLD several hours after we originally intended, but still in good spirits. She gave them the forms, paid her money, and went off to take the test. While I waited I made some interesting observations. There seemed to be only three types of people there: Boys who couldn't pull their pants up over their butts with their moms, girls that were dressed like hookers, and folks that couldn't speak a lick of English. Before you make any wise-aleck comments in your mind, there were a few exceptions, seeing that my daughter doesn't meet the description of any of those.
So, I sat and waited. And waited. There was even one of those bum boys that came after my daughter, took the test, turned it in, and started celebrating when he passed saying that he never even studied and guessed on most of the questions. Finally, after about an hour she walked back up to the counter with a sad look on her face. After talking to the lady at the counter, she walked over to me and said that she missed passing by one wrong answer, but that they were going to let her take the test again. I told her that it was ok, and that I was keeping occupied by watching all of the interesting people coming and going.
Still, in the back of my mind I was thinking, that as careful and conscientious as my daughter is in taking tests, and with the amount of time that she had studied, how did she not pass? Here was my daughter who was the intermediate algebra student of the month at her high school not passing, but bum boy, who didn't even have the intelligence to cover his backside, passed with flying colors by guessing. I could see why his mother, who must be blind, was so proud of her little indecent darling as she handed him the keys as they walked out (no subtle sarcasm here).
I waited another hour. This time I was noticing that there were several people who were taking the test, with open books. I thought that this was strange seeing that it was supposed to be a closed book test. The only connection that I could see between these people was that none of them spoke English, as far as I could tell. I figured that the DLD figured what did it matter, they probably couldn't read English either, and the bum boys of the world proved that you can simply pass the test by guessing.
My daughter finally came back to the counter again with a dejected face. She stood and spoke to the lady at the counter for several minutes and then she came back over to me. My daughter told me that she had once again missed passing the test by one missed question. The lady at the counter had decided to give her an oral test of which see got every question right. So they passed her. Yeah!!
On the way home, I asked my daughter about what questions that she had missed, seeing that on the randomized computer test that they take, they go over the questions that you miss. She said that one of the questions they asked was a true or false question that stated, 'You should honk at a bicyclist who is riding down the middle of the road so they will move to the side as you pass by them." She stated that she had said yes, because this was better than the alternative of running over them.
Though her logic seemed flawless (sorry about the sarcasm), I told her that they really write those questions to trick you. With as many strange and crazy people that are out driving on the roads today (as evidenced by what I saw in the DLD), who in their right mind would be riding their bike anywhere near a road carrying cars? So thus, the question must be false because that scenario would never happen.
P.S. Just in case you were wondering, my daughter has been practicing driving and she is a very good, safe driver.
