WARNING: Long Boring Story to Follow

IN QUEST OF THE PERMIT SAGA

I'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.

Hobo Update

Yes we are well into Hobo spider season again. This year we have moved slightly from the "dad would you squash this one...and that one... and oh, that one for me" strategy. Oh, there is still plenty of that that goes on, but this year we have also have made a small investment (into the six figures) on sticky traps. We have them laid out everywhere. It is like we have actually mined our own house. We ourselves are in constant danger of trapping our selves, and these things really do stick. I always fear that somehow, I will get one stuck to the side of my face with at least a dozen or so spiders stuck there with me. You know, they don't die right away when they get caught on these things. You can watch them do push ups for many days after they get caught. So the last thing that I would want would be to have a full aerobics class going on next to my nostrils as they try to get a piece of me in a counter attack.

We usually place these traps in strategic locations where we know they like to roam, kind of the 'hobo highways' for a lack of a better term. Regardless of how many we catch they love to follow certain paths. They just keep piling up on top of each other on these traps. There is a series of traps at the bottom of our door in the laundry room. Every day I count how many we are getting on the trap. Until yesterday. I went down to get a fresh spider count and the traps were gone.

I guess that we need to replace the traps when we reach 45 on them, otherwise, they can walk off on their own with the trap.

Lagoon #2: Reservations for Two, Anyone?

The greatest torture device at Lagoon, for more reasons than one, is the wild mouse. I have seriously injured internal organs on that excuse of a ride. I can't seriously believe that anyone gets any enjoyment out of riding it. It's constant direction changing, and 10 billion break checks, leave you more than just a little bashed and bruised by the end of the experience. I think that the only reason why anyone rides it is for the simple reason that it is there, like why some people climb Mount Everest. No pain, no gain, right!? Like a lot of rides at the park, this ride is included in the, 'why do they have it?' category. This category includes three major groupings:

1. Bore you to death
2. Causes serious bodily harm
3. Serves no purpose other than to get you violently sick.

The Wild Mouse is definitely falls under #2. The other reason, though, that it causes torture is the teenage employee. Come to think of it, that is the short coming to all of the rest of the rides.

The line strategy is pretty simple. You wait in one long line until you get pretty close to loading onto the ride. the line then breaks into two as they load two separate cars basically at the same time. Each car holds four riders. We had 6 people in our group. So we worked out all of the complicated math, well in advance, on how we were going to get 6 people into 8 or 4 slots. Once I realized that I needed to carry the two when I was doing the long division on the problem, I came up with the solution that we would have 4 people in the front car and then team on the other two with two other random strangers from the line. We got it worked out and I lined up two of the kids to go with a father and son team that was next to us in line. The stars were all lined up and we were set for everyone to board the 'ride of death' all at the same time.

I forgot one important item though...teenage blondness. The well intended ride operator asked the father and son how many was in their group and they instinctively said, "two". I was ready for this, though, because I had been observing how this young lady had been conducting business. So, I simply interjected, that my two kids had two in their group, as well, and that they were planning on going with the father and son team. Miss Operator looked at me with her best 'you are so stupid' look and voiced to the opposite line, "do we have any two riders?". I again suggested to her, that it might be simplest to take the two available right there at the front of the line. But no. She would have none of that. She again asked the second line if there were any two riders. Everyone just stood there saying nothing because they could see that we had the needed people to fill the car. Finally, a couple of kids, 50 people down the line said that they would take the spots. I was so astounded by the whole situation the only thing that came out of my mouth was, "Weird".

Has anyone else had these types of experiences?

Lagoon #1: The Teenage Employee

Oh, I think that I will start with an employee encounter from our lovely visit to Lagoon. I'm pretty sure that they require an IQ test before hiring anyone; the criteria must be: no one is allowed to score higher on the IQ test than their age.

With this first story I feel a little bad for the employees because of the training given to them by their employer or the lack thereof. It still left me wanting to bang my head against the wall. First, we stood in line for what seemed like half the morning to buy our tickets to get into the park. We actually had to get two types of tickets. We paid a gazillion fifty for those wanting tickets that allowed them to ride on rides, and then we paid nothing (whahoo!!) for those who couldn't afford a gazillion, and therefore, were relegated to only being able to smell the aroma of popcorn/hormones/puke combo-atmosphere, while siting and watching everyone else turn green with motion sickness. Jenny got to get one of those babies. Next we had to move to the next line, which was the line to get your card scanned, hand stamped, and entrance into the park. I think this line is mainly to slow your excitement down for the day. I think that they found that that early adrenalin rush that you have in anticipation of having a fun day must be squelched or you will forget that you still have credit cards in your pocket. You need these to stock up on funnel cakes and corn dogs to survive all the other wait-in-lines that you will be spending 98% of your day doing. They just hate it when some unsuspecting novice is able to slip through the entrance line too fast and rushes off to ride Wicked and perishes in the hot sun before they can even get to height requirement sign.

When we got to the front of this line we all got through, except for Jenny who was bringing up the rear with the stroller loaded with all the gear needed for a week's stay. When Jenny had finished handing out all of the 'real' passes, we realized that we had misplaced the 'free' entrance pass for her. Well, you would think that this was the first time that this poor little sixteen year old employee had ever encountered this situation. She was paralyzed and didn't know what to do, other than hold up the line of which it seemed like she had plenty of experience doing. She finally said, "let me get my supervisor". Eventually, the 'supervisor' came over to help resolve the situation. From my estimation, the reason why this girl was the 'supervisor' was solely based on her being, maybe, six months older than the girl at the gate.

Jenny quickly explained the situation. The 'supervisor' seemed quite skeptical of the situation and I think was on the verge of calling security on us. Jenny flashed her all of the extra 'free' coupons that we had from the stack of extra Stake pamphlets that we had with the attached 'free' coupons (why you would need a 'free' coupon for something that was all ready free kind of escapes me, but I'm getting away from the story). The 'supervisor' didn't buy any of this and said that we needed to stand in the ticket line to get us a 'free' entrance pass. This is where I jumped in and said that we had already stood in that line and purchased our tickets, along with getting our 'free' entrance ticket, but had misplaced it. I know this sounded like stating the obvious because we had all of the tickets that cost us a gazillion fifty, but were lacking the most important one that didn't cost us a dime. Apparently, though, these people were not hired to observe the obvious, but to exert authority which all good, reasonable adults do; and these kids so much want to seem like adults.

Well, I could see where this was going, so I continued to look frantically for the missing ticket while the 'supervisor' continued to lecture Jenny on why it was so important for her to stand in the line to get her 'free' ticket like everyone else had to. Even all of the 'white trash' hoochie women with halter tops where beginning to look at us like we were the scum of the earth trying to get a free ride (all the pun intended) in life. I eventually found the ticket mixed in with all the other worthless trash they spew back at you when you buy the tickets. So at last, the 'free' ticket was found and Jenny got her hand stamped. Interestingly enough, they stamped her hand with the same stamp that they stamped all the paying customers with (go figure).

As we walked dejectedly away, the 'supervisor' continued to glare at us as if to say, "you might have gotten away with this one, this time, but don't expect to get away with free stuff for free next time. How do you expect us to survive financially if we continue to give free stuff away for free?"

Amazingly enough, I was thinking the same thing...at least the part about surviving.

This may be a dumb story, but I have a few more that are dumber.

It's What Fun Is

How can a slogan be so far from the truth? Well, maybe if you are between the ages of 4-17, you may be tricked into thinking that pushing yourself to the brink of puking can bring you more joy than you could ever imagine. Such is the sales pitch of our local amusement park, Lagoon. I suspect that this is the case with most amusements parks across the country: high priced tickets, air stifling thick of teenage hormones, horribly mismanaged attractions, mediocre entertainment, and poor customer service.

I guess that I have to come clean a little bit. I do find some amusement in watching people and making fun of the dumb things I see. In fact, for your benefit, I am going to put a few posts on here with stories of this year's Stake Lagoon Day.

Aging Gracefully with My Car

I drive carefully home yesterday because we received over 2 feet of new snow. The Roads were a mess, but I made it into our small town ok. While driving down the road towards our house I was making a comment to myself about how high the snowbanks were (6-8 feet), when all of a sudden a truck with a plow came flying out of a driveway attempting to push some snow across the road and just nailed me.

The guy felt bad especially after he saw how damaged my car was. So, we make a walk around my car trying to assess the damage. He would point out things and say, "wow, that's bad!", and I would have to say, "Um, that was all ready there." We continued this process for about 10 minutes, and each time he pointed things out, I could see no distinguishable difference from how the car was before. We finally just gave up, and I drove away.

By the way, his snow plow was totalled.

Funny thing about this is that I no longer get embarrassed by how my car looks. I think that I have arrived at white trash nirvana.