Z's Two-Week Anniversary

Today is my two-week anniversary: 14 days since I passed my driving test to get a driver's license. This is how things went down:

The lady behind the DMV counter said, "Now you and your Mom drive around to the back of the building." My neighbor had been gracious enough to take me, and, yes, she is indeed old enough to be my mother, plus most people think I have a white parent. She had to show a valid CA license, AND had to be in the car with me until the person giving the test appeared. I had arranged for another neighbor to pick her up and take her home.

I was so nervous that I thought I'd pee in my pants, so thoughts of homicide were kept at bay. I was thinking I'd go to the driving school and run over the receptionist who had said I could just take myself, by myself, to my driving test since I was an adult.

I stood in line, chatting with some senior ladies who were taking the written test for the 3rd and 4th time although they were excellent drivers and had had licenses in other states. My driving instructor was there, too, accompanying a student in his late teens. I could have had him take me . . . for another $100. The instructor, in his mid-twenties, had acquired some facial hair that looked like a furry finger placed vertically on either side of his mouth. He later looked at my road-test results as he told me he had taught my test-giver-lady's son how to drive. I was so happy that it didn't occur to me ask about the fingers. Yes, I had passed!

I had made the test-giver-lady flinch. Hey! It wasn't my fault; a car had parked in an odd turn in the road, the road was narrow, and there was a planter/road divider on the other side, so it looked like I was going to hit the parked car. But I did indeed pass. Yay!

The first thing I did was drive to the beach (making as few left-hand turns as possible) and sob with relief. I hadn't slept well for the previous two nights. Plus the day before I had added some extra pressure thinking, "I MUST pass this test tomorrow!" as I sat on the bus, squeezed between an extremely large man (he usually takes up two seats, sometimes three to be really comfortable) with bright blue/green/white eczema covering his forearms and teenagers discussing their sex lives. "And I said, 'Oh no, mothafucka, you did NOT just come before me!'" Usually that kind of thing, bus life, doesn't bother me, but I was ready to be in my zehicle. Yay!

Getting home I missed, erm, more exits than I care to discuss, and I ended up in the wrong town. Twice. Heehee! By the time I got home, I was dripping with sweat (I forgot that I had really good air conditioning) and exhausted from the stress. But I had chocolate milk coursing through my veins, and I had a license. Yay!