[Almost] Punished for Being Good
Today, our hero arose. He went and compiled his weapons - a passport, a title, a utility bill in his name - and went to face the enemy known only as DMV.
Ah, DMV! That giant among bureacrats, patron saint among inefficient morasses, guardian angel of all drab waiting rooms. And when the little mechanical voice said, “A023 at Window Number 9,” our hero knew that every weapon at his employ would require the most skillful of weilding.
And each, one by one, was taken and assimilated by DMV. Each accomplished its purpose, but none could deal the deathblow. In the end, it came down to one weapon - the debit card.
Our hero begged. He signed over a lien on the house he does not yet own. He promised to donate his wavy locks to the California Department of Aid for the Hairless. He spat upon signs that said “Threatening a State Employee is a Felony” and demanded justice and freedom. All to no avail.
But in the end, debit card prevailed. It was bereaved of its motive force, the green energy that powers its economical workings, but it prevailed, and our hero emerged with a small piece of paper broadcasting to the world that he had an Interim License to Drive.
–From A Pointless Oral History of One of Mankind’s Dimmest Luminaries
I didn’t bother, I’m afraid, studying the California textbook on driving. Perhaps it was naive, but I assumed that since I had been driving for quite some time with a clean record, I’d be able to buzz right through a written test. (Though the inner man chafed at having to take a written test, I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal.)
But when I sat down and started reading I was worried. I didn’t know the answers. I discovered, though, that the questions I didn’t know the answers to were based entirely on the fact that I’m just too good of a person. I don’t drink, so the BAC limit just doesn’t matter to me. I don’t smoke, so regulations on when you can smoke and drive just never entered my mind.
And as I sat there, thinking to myself that if I failed this test because I don’t drink and smoke, I was going to be rather put out.
It turns out, though, that California is strangely predictable on how it regulates drinking and smoking. I found it rather ironic, though, even in my relief at passing, that while I got the questions about smoking and drinking correct, of the three I missed one involved a blind man in a crosswalk, one involved talking on a cell phone without a hands-free device (it’s more legal than I thought!), and the third involved how much information you have to give the imbecile that smashed his car against yours.
But this I can say, with a highly genuine sigh of gratefulness - it’s done. I’m licensed and registered. I need not darken the door of a DMV for a long while yet.