He passed, of course, but there was a problem. At some point during his freshman year, he participated in something called "Mailbox Baseball" I'll let your imagination work out exactly what that is. The part of the Mailbox Baseball Incident that he always highlighted was that he spent a night in jail, and then had to walk to Cowtown from Wautoma (50 miles) because he didn't realize when he started exactly how long a walk it would be.

Well, there's a little more to the story. Apparently, he was fined $50, and never paid it. This was in 1991, people. 19 freaking 91! Since then, he's been in DMV offices around the state a couple times. He's gotten a new state ID every time we moved. But, for some reason, yesterday, the flag came up that he still owed The Man $50 for youthful indiscretions.

I paid it, because I didn't want to go through the hassle of having to drive him to the DMV and retake the test some other time, but crap. He didn't work last week, but it was ok. I didn't buy food (we've been eating a lot of pasta this week), scrimped every penny of my tips, and it was fine. Then, I suddenly need $50 more. Grumble grumble. Goodbye, savings...

So, we get out to the car.

"You wanna drive home?"

"Are you ready for me to drive?"

"Well, I'll have to get used to the idea sometime."

The first thing he did was turn on the autolock. The key would not move. I hadn't even known my car had an antitheft feature. It took us 20 minutes to figure out that he'd turned the steering wheel, which apparently, is what all car thieves do before trying to start the car. I shouldn't talk so smart. It stumped us.

That was actually pretty funny. Picture both of us, laughing like idiots in the DMV parking lot. He turned on the parking brake at one point, then got that stuck too.

We drove home without incident. There was only one kinda scary part.

"Hon? You're kinda close to that car right there?"

"I know. But this guy behind me is too close to me."

Then, the front car slowed way down. D. hit the brakes, but it didn't seem to me like we were slowing down enough. ohmygodwe'regonnadie!! Then, at the last possible moment, the front car turned into a driveway, and D. sped up.

"This is like playing a really boring video game."

Whimper.

Seriously, the boy did just fine. We're gonna try to get to Zenith a few times a week, so he can practice city driving. I think he'll be OK. He's a lot less nervous than I was when I first drove.

previous--next