Should have seen that one coming.

To be clear, yesterday’s dental extravaganza only took about 20 minutes. It was 7:40 am and I was ready to move forward with some more excitement. In a little less than one week, my driver’s license will expire. In light of this, the Department of Motor Vehicles has taken the time to inform me via regular mail that I must come down to the DMV, pay them money, then take a written test to prove that I still have what it takes to pilot a four wheeled, non-commercial vehicle.

I arrived at the DMV about 10 minutes before 8. There was already a line outside. Awesome, I thought. I was afraid I’d get done with this quickly and be able to sit in traffic sooner rather than later on my way to work. (by the way, it’s a little known fact that if I leave my house at 7:00 am, I can get to work by 7:40. But if I leave at 7:10 am, I’m lucky to get there by 8:15. Math was never my strong suit, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t add up quite right. If I leave at 8:30, well, I’m just going to be late, there’s no way around it.) The doors opened promptly at 8 and all of us happy-to-be-at-the-DMV-before-8-am people cheerfully walked inside.

I’m not sure how they’re handling the DMV situation in other states, but they seem to be working out the kinks here in CA, or at least in my county. Now, everyone gets funneled through the information desk, and depending on your business and appointment status (either you have one or you don’t), you are given a number and told to wait until that number is called. It seems to me to be a fairly efficient way to move people through the line. Rather than have everyone actually stand and get more and more annoyed by the one lady who has no real information regarding her car’s license plate number, her driver’s license number or even her home address, but is convinced that she absolutely, positively needs to get some sort of misunderstanding taken care of here at the DMV, we can all just sit down, relax and stare at the keno like screen for our number to pop up, at which point we feel like we’ve won something and are more than happy to go to the window to collect our prize.

I drew G004. I immediately felt like I had a winner in my hands. And after they called F001 5 times without anyone jumping up to claim victory, I was proven right. In order to claim my prize, a series of death defying tests would be required of me.

First, with only the use of my eyes, I was made to read 6, somewhat small letters on a chart nearly 10 feet away. Once with both eyes, and again with just my left eye, then with just my right. I was yelled at when I used only my fingers to cover my right eye, not my entire palm. I only made that mistake once. After I passed this daunting task, I was shipped off to the other side of the building where my thumbprint and a picture of my face were taken. I assumed these would be used for identification purposes if I failed the next test and was never seen nor heard from again.

Once the ID work was taken care of (and I can assure you, I looked spectacular in the photo. I’ve shaved as recently as 3 weeks ago, and rather than use product in my hair, I simply wore a hat most of the morning.), I was handed two written tests to complete. I had been prepared for one, but not for two. (and by prepared, I mean I knew the test was coming, I certainly didn’t study for it. I didn’t study for any of my tests in college, and I wasn’t going to start now.) That’s when I was reminded that my license doesn’t just say that I have a class C license, it also states that I have a class M1 license. That, ladies and gentleman, is for my motorcycle license. I was taken aback. But I remained calm as ever on the outside. I hadn’t taken the written driving test in over a decade, but the motorcycle one I had taken about 4 and a half years ago, so I figured that would be the easier of the two.

In retrospect, I probably should have spent more time in answering all of the questions. 5 minutes seemed a bit fast for the 43 combined questions. That means I spent an average of just under 7 seconds per question. And I know for a fact that I spent more than that on some, so there must have been a few that I didn’t even read…

I passed the driving portion without any problems, but on the motorcycle portion, which was twice as long, I missed 8 questions. You’re only allowed to miss 4. I can retake the test as many times as I want for the next year, so I’m not really that worried about it, but I do feel it necessary to show you what kinds of questions I missed. Check out the following picture.

The correct answer has the red slash through it. I have not photoshopped this at all. You tell me, does that answer seem like prudent riding to you given the picture? Was my answer really wrong?

In the mean time, I can still drive a car. I have an impossible to counterfeit piece of paper that says so. Unfortunately, when my new license comes, it will have “LOSER” stamped across my face until I can pass that motorcycle test. In the mean time, my girlfriend, mother and one of my sisters, couldn’t be happier about my illegal motorcycle status. But the jokes on them because I haven’t even ridden my motorcycle in over 2 and a half years! Ha ha!!

After that, I went to work, sucked at my job, stayed late to make up the hour and a half I was late, came home, posted (what? Yeah, I have this blog… sometimes I post.) and called it a day.

Ok, that’s two posts in two days… I’m starting to wheeze… that’s not normal… typing shouldn’t make you wheeze…