Life is a parking lot, not a highway

By Dorothy Wilson ‘The Marion Mom’

You know you’re having a bad day when you cause a vehicular accident in the parking lot of the driver’s test office.

Last Tuesday, I took my newly valid teenage daughter to the driver’s test office to take the written part of the driver’s permit test.

Had she studied? Negative.

She had, however, barely completed a cursory readthrough by the time we pulled into the parking lot.

She also had studied a flashcard app that is in no way associated with the DMV, I was adamantly told by Officer NoNonsense, who handed me the book and said, “Study it. Old school. I mean, highlighter, pencil, notes.”

So instead, my daughter “old-school” skimmed it.

But since she had the day off from school, she insisted that she be given a chance, regardless of the high probability of failure.

I insisted that she would have to repay the extra $5 it cost every time she failed.

So, as per instruction, I arrived solo at 9 am to sign her name on a line. That line told me what time to return with her in the afternoon.

A little cumbersome, in my opinion, but #IMomSo-Hard, so I did it.

In the interim, I tore my house apart looking for the document from her school stating she was both enrolled and earning a passing grade. I had emailed The Delta School earlier in the week for the document, and they promptly printed, signed, sealed, and delivered it to my daughter, who actually had no idea what it was or why it was so important.

So she left it at school.

When she returned empty- handed, I stressed the importance of possessing the document before the school holiday–otherwise she would be unable to take the permit test.

The next day, she arrived home with the important paperwork. In her lunchbag. She handed it to me while I was eating dinner.

I silently hoped Officer NoNonsense would accept a document with coffee stains and watermarks, because, well, we spill stuff.

Knowing how important it was, I quickly carted it off to a safe place–my desk drawer–and promptly forgot about it.

So Tuesday morning, when I was reminded that I needed her birth certificate and her school letter, I panicked.

Y’all, I didn’t even remember that she had given it to me! I chalk it up to a heavily distracted life, but when they diagnose me with Alzheimer’s in three years, you’ll know there were signs.

Anyway, I spent an hour looking under my bed, looking in the junk drawer, and retrieving gunk from between the couch seats while Hopeful Daughter read the book. I finally asked myself, “I can’t believe I wouldn’t have put that in a safe place! If I had, where would I have put it?”

And ta-da, treasure found.

Right where I left it.

That’s an hour I’ll never get back.

When we arrived three minutes before her appointed time, the waiting area was full, both of applicants and assistants.

Officer NoNonsense announced, “The system’s down. I don’t know when it will come back up. This happens every time that school lets out because all the applicants across the state overload the system.”

I don’t know much about networking, but I do know that one year, I tried to shop J.C. Penney online on Black Friday. Because they had not planned for such heavy traffic, their website lagged so badly that it took three hours to check out.

The government is over here making the same mistake. This is the future of our medical system, y’all.

Well, while we sat there, I noticed I knew most of the folks there, which I didn’t expect, but it made sense, because we all had kids turning 14, and we were all out of school that week only.

So we made the best of a bad situation and visited. It was like a beauty shop in there!

I don’t think Officer NoNonsense appreciated it.

At one point, my neighbor excused herself to take her daughter to the actual beauty shop for a trim.

I glanced out the window and saw her chatting with yet another woman, and I mentally noted, “Gosh, she knows everyone!”

But no. She wasn’t visiting. She was negotiating.

Her teenaged daughter had backed her car out of a slanted parking spot into the vehicle behind her, impairing the other driver’s door.

In the driver’s test parking lot.

My tact couldn’t suppress the ironic glee I found in the situation. I laughed right in front of her. Not just a snicker. A full-bellied, crinkle-eyed, tearful, lingering hoot and howl.

Fortunately, they were able to chuckle about it, too. I imagine the reality of the cost of her mistake curbed their amusement a bit, though.

While they discreetly took care of that, the system came back on.

Three people finished their computerized test, stood up with downturned lips, shaking their heads.

I turned to Hopeful Daughter. “Don’t expect to pass. No one here has passed yet.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know, Mom, shees.”

As she was assigned terminal one, I pulled out my phone to start a book.

I was hardly finished opening the app before she stood up.

As we connected gazes, I was ready with the comfort and wisdom my 38 years have afforded me.

But she flashed me the thumbs up.

Confused, I confirmed, “You passed?”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” she replied through a big smile.

I will say this: there’s a giant leap from book knowledge to field application. The first time I took her out behind the wheel, she lurched into a parking spot, slamming on the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal.

She swooped through a stop sign.

She drove on the center line.

But at least she didn’t back into a car in the driver’s test parking lot.

I’ve got a plan to prevent it, too. I’ll park in a pull-forward parking spot when she’s due for her driving test.

As long as someone reminds me, that is.

Dorothy Wilson lives in Marion with her husband Chris as they enjoy all of the adventures life with their seven children brings. Her columns appear monthly in the Marion Ledger, with reprints appearing in the online edition of the Evening Times, such as this one from November 2017.