DFKJSDFJH;FGHAS.

Okay so here is the deal: I don’t have a driver’s license. This is weirdly stressful to a lot of people– “You don’t have a WHAT?” they always say–but it actually works for me just fine. I’ve lived in a city for six years. If I’m going somewhere the T can’t take me, odds are I’m not going there alone. And frankly, I am a flipping TERRIBLE driver. So, whatever. I am handy on road trips because I make good mix cds, and also snacks, but you should know that if you get tired of driving you are shit out of luck, because I called shotgun before we got in the car and shotgun is where I am going to stay. 

But. Lately I’ve been thinking it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to have a license. It’s a life skill, I guess. It could be useful in emergencies, like if I was back home at my mom’s in New York and nobody wanted to go take me to get an iced coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts and both my legs were broken so I couldn’t walk there (although I guess if both my legs were broken I couldn’t drive, either, so). And eventually I am going to want to punch out some kids, and maybe I will have to drive the carpool or something, or MAYBE I will get that farm I have always wanted and I will have to take the produce to market. WHATEVER. The bottom line is, I am off from work today, and over the weekend I decided I was going to go take my freaking permit test and get this show on the road, so to speak, once and for all. 

I studied the manual. I memorized speed limits. I wrote myself an inspirational “Git her done” message and stuck it on the bathroom mirror. I read the guidelines VERY CAREFULLY and made sure to have all my documents in order. This morning, when the Boston branch of the Mass RMV opened its doors at nine o’clock, I was standing in line. 

I waited. And waited. And when they finally called my number–“I’m here to take the permit test!” I said cheerfully–the woman at the desk explained to me in halting, broken English that I had the wrong papers. 

“No, they’re right,” I told her, pointing to the RMV-issued list I’d printed offline. “See?”

“Nope. Wrong.” She needed a copy of my lease, she told me–which was sitting in a file box back at my apartment, forty minutes away. 

JUST. What was I going to do? I trekked back to Southie, got her the damn lease, and trekked all the way back across town, where I stood in line AGAIN. I waited. And waited. I got to the front of the line, where a new woman now stood. “I’m here to take the permit test!” I told her. 

“Oh,” she said. “We’re not doing permit tests today. Machine’s broken. Could try taking it at another branch, though.”

Um. Would have been nice if the first woman had mentioned that, yes? But no matter. I was GITTING HER DONE. “Well, okay,” I said. “Where’s the closest one?”

“Watertown,” she told me. “But you’d have to drive.”