Pass...

I got to take a trip to the Ministry of Transportation yesterday.

It was 5 short years ago (holy shit, that was 5 years ago!) that I got my license. Here in Ontario, we have a graduated licensing system, so when I was 16 I wrote my G1 test and started driving with 'supervision'. The next step was 8 months later, when I did my first driving test, passing my G2. I could drive by myself with no restrictions (except no blood-alcohol count allowed).

My license expires in September, and to keep from loosing it, I had to take yet another driving test to confirm that indeed I can drive. So I got the great pleasure of doing my final road test and solidifying myself as a fully licensed driver.

I arrived well in advance, sat in my car and listened to the radio, trying to keep my mind from psyching myself out too badly. When my examiner arrived, I thought I was screwed. She was a little over 5 feet tall, short hair and a serious face, and looked to be wearing army-issue pants. In retrospect, she looked like she belonged marching across the deck of an aircraft carrier, not across a parking lot to administer a driving test.

She arrived at my window and without a smile said, "Steve, turn on your left indicator."

Well, good morning to you! And here I was thinking if I'm friendly to her, it won't be so stupidly formal.

We ran through all the lights on the car, then she got settled in to the passenger seat. A moment later and we were on our way, my hands choking the steering wheel at 10 and 2, eyes darting from mirror to road and back to mirror. Honestly, I think it's safer to drive casually rather than with such 'attentiveness', because it felt like I spent more time looking behind me than I did to see what I was driving into in front of me.

The test took far longer than expected, roughly 25 minutes. I had left the radio on it's lowest volume setting, and she didn't ask me to turn it off, which helped break the monotony of the exercise. We were driving down a quiet residential street, when a police cruiser rounded the corner in front of me and sped down the middle of the street. I got to demonstrate my keen driving skills, signaling and pulling off to the curb to let the emergency vehicle pass us by.

"That wasn't very nice of him," commented the examiner. I tried to make light of the situation, but my comment fell into an uncomfortable silence. Apparently only She may talk.

I was almost finished, when she asked me to do an emergency stop. I signaled, did the mirror check thing, and was angling myself to the curb while at the same time fumbling for the 4-way flasher knob, which is conveniently hidden under the steering wheel.

"You're going to hit the curb," was all she said.

Then it happened, just as I was rolling to a stop, my wheel tapped the side of the curb.

Shit.

"Well," she said, in the same voice she'd used the entire time. "Seems like we found ourselves in our own 'emergency'."

I nervously sucked in breath, reviewing in my mind if hitting the curb means an automatic failure or not. We resumed and finished the test. In the Test Centre lot, she pulled a sheet from her clipboard and handed it to me.

"You passed," she said, and slung herself out of the door.

I happily took my paperwork into the office, where I was informed that even though I had passed, I still have to renew my license in September, and get a new picture taken. And for the low price of $60, I could have it done that very morning, while I was dressed in rumpled clothes with three days worth of growth on my face!

Ultimately I passed on the new photo, opting to do it in August when I actually tried to look nice for it. After all, this is my usual identification, and I don't want to look like an insane, sleep deprived maniac. The way my license is right now, I look, well, 16 years old, and it's been rejected several times recently because people just don't believe I'm the same person. Well, duh, there's a big difference between a 16-year-old and a 20-year-old.

I now have to wait pensively by the mailbox for my new G license to arrive, and have my official driving career begin.