Well, this morning, I decided, along with one of my sisters, to -why not? - earn my driver’s license. After all, we’re a bit overdue; I’ve been 17 for almost two months. And so me, my sister and my mother all awoke at the ungodly hour of 7:42 (approximately) to get ready for our Big Fifteen Minutes.
As might be expected with such an early wake time, there was much fussing and knashing of teeth, but we managed to pile into the car at about twenty past eight in the morning and head off towards the Leominster, MA Registry of Motor Vehicles. My sister took over the driving when we got to Route 2 (which can be alternately called Evil St - except that it’s not a street, it’s a highway. But Evil St. sounds much cooler than Evil Highway. Sort of. Anyway…). This, naturally, induced a lot of stress to an already stressful morning.
You see, I was nervous. The fact is, the cops who do the road tests in Leominster are anal by reputation. The guy we were getting (the morning guy) was supposedly better than the afternoon guy, but still pretty awful. The stick in his butt had a stick in its butt, so to speak. Not to draw any correllation between the sticks in the cops’ butts and their being anal, mind you.
Anyway, my sister was first. Poor thing, the same guy had failed her twice. Bastard. I think that she was determined to either get her license this time, or punch the guy out. He said he would take us back to back. Good man.
Anyhoo, they went out and did their thing, just a quick lane change. This time was perfect for me to get even more worked up about the whole thing, but lucky me - I can operate pretty well even when nervous. Doesn’t screw up my judgement that much. So they came back, the guy passed my sister, and I got into the car.
It started with the usual, of course. I showed him my hand signals, and we were pretty much good to go. I put the car in drive and started to pull away from the curb.
Remember: these guys are anal. That means they want you to signal whenever you so much as move the wheel.
He suggested to me, then, that I needed to signal. So I signaled to the right, since I thought he meant I needed to signal to turn into another part of the parking lot. He asked why I was signalling to the right when I was pulling away from the curb. D’oh. One mistake already, and we hadn’t even left the parking lot. I resolved to do perfectly from that point on.
So, I turned onto the little driveway/road thingie that goes toward the main street and head up toward the stoplight. I got in the left turn lane… and completely blew the stopline on the light, see there are two lines here: one in front of a set of train tracks that you’re supposed to stop behind, and one two car lengths ahead that you’re supposed to turn from.
“Did you know that your first stopline was back there in front of the tracks?”
D’oh. Again. Two strikes, and we’ve barely left the RMV.
So I turn onto the road, thinking I’m in trouble. At this point, I was just hoping I could pass the test, that I would do the rest perfectly. No such luck, of course. We come up to a light, and a left hand turn. I go ahead to make my turn, and as I happen to pass under it I notice this little yellow arrow has come on. I just hope that it’s not important as I finish the turn.
“Did you see that yellow arrow back there”
Damn. “Yes sir, I did.”
“Do you know what that arrow means?”
Oh, shit. You see, I have no idea. I’ve never encountered one in my life. They’re rare enough not to be mentioned in the driver’s manual. What to do? Time to bluff.
“…Yield before making the turn?”
Silence.
Great, I’m thinking, I’m toast at this point. Best thing to do is just try and do the rest perfectly. And pray.
So we turn left, then right, then I pull over and do my backing up and three-point turn thingie. Then we go back to the RMV.
When we get in, he has me pull into a parking spot. I’m bracing myself for the inevitable, when…
he says something about being careful out there as he circles the “PASS” on my form! WOOHOO! He warned me to be a little more careful with the yellow lights, and to be prepared to slow and stop when I saw them. He said since I got through the intersection safely, that it wasn’t a big deal. The stopline error he said he was letting go. A lot of people make that error, and it doesn’t put you in danger.
And so… I have a driver’s license. Wow. I hardly know what to do now. Get permission and… drive somewhere. It feels really cool, and it was far more relaxing to go out on an errand and drive without a parent in the car, but it was almost anti-climatic. Well, I can live with that.
Go me!
And that was my big day :D.