Got up early this morning, around 5:30 AM. I had an exam to cram for.
Now that we’ve moved, and changed States, I need to get a new Driver’s License. Something that is more fun than anybody ought to be allowed to have.
I’ve been going over the Driver’s Handbook for our new State. Right off the bat it states that if you are moving into the State from another one, you’ve got sixty (60) days to get a license in he new State. They also heavily push you to schedule an appointment using their online tool. I spent a week trying to do just that. There are several offices in the area to choose from, and you pick a day that the office has slots open in heir schedule. They say that if they don’t have any slots open, to keep checking back because new slots are added all the time. Fair enough. They also say that someone applying for a new Driver’s License will have to have a vision test, take a written test, and a driving test.
The first few days there weren’t any openings at any of the offices. Then several offices had openings in their schedule. I went to try to grab an appointment. The earliest thing any of them had was August 24. For several days I kept checking. More openings on the schedule appeared but they kept extending out to September and beyond. Well beyond the sixty day limit. I was going to have to suck it up and go there in person.
I started reading through the Handbook when I started trying to schedule an appointment. I was doing OK until the wife ended up in the ER several times over a four day span. Since the handbook was digital I couldn’t read it while sitting around the ER. It wasn’t until the last day she ended up in the ER that I pulled my old laptop out of storage (the one that kept heating up on me and I eventually replaced with my desktop.) I loaded the PDF of the Handbook on it and took it with me. Fortunately the laptop didn’t get too hot while I was using it.
This morning was the last chance I was going to have to get my license for a while. I hadn’t finished going through it all so I was up early to finish it off. A lot of it is common sense (keeping in mind the old adage that common sense isn’t all that common) but I figured it couldn’t hurt to brush up om it all.
Got the dogs walked, had breakfast, got ready for the day and went to the Department of Motor Vehicles, the good old DMV.
I walked in ad there were only two people in line ahead of me. How fortunate, I thought. I signed in on the little kiosk and sat down to wait. I brought a book along to pass the time reading.
I’m guessing other people were more successful in scheduling appointments as people kept coming in and getting seen before me. It let me have more time to read so I guess I can’t complain.
An hour and forty five minutes later I got called. I went to the desk I’d been assigned to and sat down. The nice lady asked for all my identifying papers, my Texas driver’s license and proof of insurance. I told her we’d just moved here ad I need to get my liense.
She was very nice and looked over my papers, entered some information on the computer, then asked me to look into the little machine next to the desk for the eye exam. I looked in, read the row of letters she asked for, then identified the signs that displayed, ad finally she asked me what a solid double yellow line on the road meant (no passing). She entered some more information into the computer, took my picture, and finally had me digitally sign a document. That was it. No written test, no driving test. I’m guessing my age and forty years of driving experience counted for something.
I paid the fee for getting the license. Then her computer burped. She had to enter some of the information in again. Finally she printed out my temporary license and said the real license would arrive in seven to ten (7 – 10) days. I was done. If it hadn’t been for the burp in the computer, it would have taken less than 15 minutes. Lots of waiting followed by a little activity, not unlike combat rounds in first edition AD&D.
It’s a little weird. I’ve always had a Texas license until now. Now I have a license from a different Sate. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It feels like I’m severing my Texas roots.
At any rate, I can now legally drive in my new State. Instead of driving though I’d rather be reading. I guess being able to drive to the library and get more books is a Good Thing (m), so getting the license was worth it.
If you’d like to support my efforts, why not buy me a chocolate chip cookie through my Ko-Fi page? https://ko-fi.com/jhusum
My first thought was thankfully we don’t need a license to read. My second thought was, the way things are going, that might not be true much longer.
Regrettably, you may be correct about the reading thing.