One little 50th birthday gift that I wasn’t quite ready for was renewing my driver’s license. Isn’t there suppose to be a 30 day grace period or something? NOT. So, as the nice woman at the city DMV told me, my license officially expired at midnight on February 23rd. Of course, I’m thinking that I surely could talk my way out of a ticket with the “it was my 50th birthday and I had so much more to worry about” line, but thinking I’d rather not have to go there.
So I set out to renew my license. One small problem…this permanent address, temporary address, where do I live, where is my home, po boxes do not count as addresses, are you a resident, am I a resident, thing was causing me some hangups. How do homeless people get drivers licenses? Just asking. Day two, still officially expired.
I made a little trip back to a hometown that will remain unnamed just in case any of this was somewhat illegal. And small towns are the greatest, not only do they know me to be an honest, upstanding, Christian woman and believe the address that I just might not be able to prove…they know my children’s middle names, every man I ever dated while single, and probably the color of my favorite nail polish! Address issue, resolved. (Uh, did I just mention honest Christian woman and somewhat illegal in the same sentence?)
Quick and painless, and that expired license…it only cost me a buck for being late…not the test that I was dreading. My mother had warned me, “even if it’s open book they have trick questions.” Here I worried for nothing! Until…
Those words, those awful words, “please place your forehead against the black line on the top of the machine. Read line 5.”
As soon as my eyes adjusted to even determine which line was #5, I knew I was in trouble. Squint, squint, close left eye, close right eye, oops much worse.
Dig in purse for stronger readers.
And so I began the guessing game. I’m telling you everything looked like an S or a 3. Surely they wouldn’t put all S’s and 3’s, would they?
By about the 4th try I asked the nice lady if I could read line 4, no go. What I didn’t tell her was that, I really couldn’t read line 4 either.
I did not make it this far, drive miles out of my way to flunk the eye test. And with all that small town kindness that I just love, the women let me try over and over (like maybe 15 times) until I finally only missed the maximum amount allowable. Thank goodness for small towns…I would have never gotten a license in the city. (those mean people!)
Yip, two days in and I had to have a 49andcounting experience. I learned my lesson, I will be going to the eye doctor soon. Just darn glad they didn’t have a hearing test!
49andcounting 