Well, I am again a licensed driver. But it wasn't easy.
And if I were the DMV, I would disqualify me on the basis of stupidity!
So you remember the story, right? I'm now old and had to go in
to renew my license. My eyes are worse, so I decided to go to the doctor and get a
form about my eyes, hoping to simplify things. Only instead of simplifying things,
it triggered them to require a behind-the-wheel test, which was scheduled for last Monday.
Monday, I showed up for the behind the wheel test, they ask where my
doctor form is, I tell them I never got it back, they tell me the clerk is in for training
but they can't let me take the behind the wheel test unless I have the form and I will
have to go back to Sacramento to the doctor and get another.
I call Kaiser and the doctor tells me she will have it all filled out
and I can pick it up after 3 the next day. Then I send her another e-mail saying I
will probably get it on Wednesday instead.
Then I open a drawer to get stamps and there is the form I insisted I
didn't have. But I didn't want to admit that to the doctor, so we go to Kaiser to
get the form anyway, only we go on the original date and it isn't ready yet because the
doctor thought I was coming the next day. I admit I don't even need it now and am
glad it will be a year before I see her again and hope she will have forgotten what an
idiot I am.
So that brings us to this morning. My appointment was for 8
a.m. and I am told to arrive 15 minutes ahead of time. I put all of my paperwork in
the car two days before so I'm sure I have everything.
I set two alarms to make sure I am up by 7 and instead wake up at 4.
At 7 Walt comes down because he had set an alarm too. There is no chance I
will miss this appointment.
I get to the office not 15, but 20 minutes early. I have not
worn a coat because I am just going right inside the office. It is freezing, and the
office door doesn't open until 8. But I have my paperwork and I'm good to
go.
At 8 a.m. the doors open and I present myself at Window 8, as
directed and the guy takes all my paperwork and asks me where my doctor form is. I
have brought the blank form, not the one the doctor filled in!!!!
I feel like a total idiot. Back to the house I go to get the
proper form and return to the DMV, which is now starting to feel like my home away from
home. The whole staff seems to know me by sight now, smiling and waving when I
arrive.
But finally I am behind the wheel and John, a large, cheery man who
asks why I'm so anxious (I don't think I'm anxious) quizzes me on where things are in the
car. I tell him it's a new car and I don't know where the flasher lights are.
Heck, I couldn't even find the "emergency brake" (thinking it was
something other than the hand brake). John calms me down and we chat at great length
before he lets me take my vehicle of death out onto the road.
I thought I did fabulously, until I turned right onto the
right lane of a street I had forgotten only has one lane, but I just knew that I had aced
the test, until he told me I had "fourteen minor driving errors." FOURTEEN???? I knew about that backing up thing, which was the thing I was
most afraid of because it's the one instance where being blind in one eye is a problem
(that and the inability to turn my neck as far easily as I used to be!) but he says I'm a
good driver and yes, I can continue to drive.
But because I'm old, and because of my eye problem, I have to have my
driving tested behind the wheel every two years now. I can live with that. Not
happily, but I can live with it. And next time I have to bring an updated
doctor's form and I hope to God that I remember to do that right this time!!
(I just hope that when my license arrives I don't have the experience
Tom did. Back when he was still living in Davis, he got his license renewed and when
it arrived, the photo on it was of an older Black woman!)
I came home and was here about an hour when my mother called, saying
she felt terrible and that she was out of toilet paper. I packed up some TP and took
it to her. She said she had been feeling bad since last night, but had no specific
symptoms. Again, she refuses to see the doctor, but since she doesn't have a fever,
she's not coughing now, and it was raining and I didn't want to take her out in the rain,
I decided to see how she is on Monday. She said over and over and over again how
lucky she is to be healthy and how much she hates doctors. I pointed out that if she
wants to remain healthy, she should see a doctor when she doesn't know what is
wrong because that's why the doctor went to medical school and that the doctor could find
out what is going on inside her. She grudgingly agreed with me. So we'll see how it
goes on Monday.
That's 8 partially eaten ice cream cones and the loaf of bread she asked me to buy her when she moved in in May.
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