Vision tests, written exams, fees: sounds like a birthday to me

I recently celebrated my birthday. And by celebrated, I mean I spent the bulk of the morning at the DMV. Not a bad place for birthdays if you like that grayish, semi-depressive atmosphere (wait a minute, that’s exactly like birthdays). The DMV is like The Bad News waiting room.

When I visited the DMV eighteen years ago to the day (heck, to the hour), to first get my driver’s license, the DMV was an icon of freedom. Yes, we were jam-packed like sardines in a can, but at the end of it, one ton of metal on four wheels was waiting to take me away from my bicycle for the rest of my life. I could endure the claustrophobia.

Admittedly, the Woodstock DMV is less crowded and more spacious than the Niles location, where I got my first license (and a practical heaven compared to the Elston Ave. location, where people literally fell into the tiles never to be seen again), but it’s the DMV nonetheless. And this year my license was up for renewal, which meant (thanks to one rotten ticket in 10 years) I had to take a written test in addition to the visual exam – not to mention the $30 fee plus (there’s always a plus with the DMV) the $.60 fee for using my debit card (a detail everyone seemed to know about except for me. Of the 100 people in line, I was the ONLY one to not pay cash.)

The celebration began a couple months ago when I got the renewal diagnosis, I mean notification, in the mail. From the first word, I knew this was going to be less than thrilling, as I quickly realized my license expired 11 days before I was to move into my new home. How should I handle the address change? Am I supposed to go renew my driver’s license with my current address, then go back in 11 days to do the entire process over again to get my new address?

Of course not, said the DMV when I called to inquire. You can give us any address you want. We can’t prove where you live. Perfect, I thought. I’ll just tell them my new address and hope I don’t get pulled over in the meantime.

But, he said to me, you need about a dozen documents to prove you live there (turned out I only needed my darned current driver’s license, but what should you expect?). I later found out that I can just call the DMV after I move and alert them of the address change, and so long as I don’t mind that my license has my former address on it, it’s okay with them because their computers and police computers will have the correct address. As thrilling as any visit to the DMV is, I opted to keep my former address.

As usual, I got lost going to the DMV on the day of my visit, thanks to MapQuest. And in getting lost, it was like driving through a road test. Literally, as I toured Woodstock, everything from road construction to school busses (on a Saturday in summer, mind you!) to kids running out in the middle of the street was thrown at me.

When I finally got there, I informed the guard at the front desk why I was there, and he pointed to a line to my left like he was the Grim Reaper pointing a bony-fingered way to the death realm.

The clerk behind the vision station was very nice and friendly, though, so that helped, and thanks to her good graces, I didn’t fail my vision test. I say this because when I left for the DMV, I accidentally took the wrong pair of glasses, which have a lower prescription. I looked into the viewfinder, and the clerk told me to read the second of the three lines. I couldn’t read anything! So there I was, gripping the sides of the viewfinder, squinting at the light at the end of a long, black tunnel. Finally, I was able to make out the letters, and I read them fast, as if to fool the clerk into thinking there wasn’t a problem: “AS12 QRF5 XUM8.”

“Eight?” she asked, accusingly.

I squinted harder. “Nine, I’m sorry, it’s nine.”

“Now,” she instructed, “tell me if you see the flashing red lights on the right, left, or both.”

I kept looking…and looking…and looking…and nothing. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I actually started to wonder if I’d lost my peripheral vision due to some unknown illness. I started to worry, thinking maybe this was a trick.

Then the clerk said, “Wait a minute, look at me.”

I did, shamed. She exclaimed, “It’s your glasses! The rims are too thick. Take them off.”

I did as she suggested, planted my head back into the view finder, and there were the flashing red lights on both sides, thank goodness!

“You passed,” she said. “Here’s your ticket, step to the cashier.”

There, I was given my written test. All I have to say about this is, if school tests were like the DMV’s, I would have done much better in school. The test seems to be designed to keep people on the road. There were 20 questions in total, and 20 road signs I had to match. Of the 20 questions, 18 a person who’d never put their hands on a steering wheel could answer, with 2 complicated questions thrown in so no one can accuse the DMV of giving it away. All in all, I got one question wrong (about when you can/can’t pass a school bus; the question was so turned around, I’m not even sure a school bus driver would get it right), and two road signs (sue me, I thought a RR crossing sign was a white circle).

In the end, I was rewarded with a new driver’s license. Normally, I end my Happy Trails with some sort of punch line or hook. In this case, I’ll let my driver’s license photo suffice for both. Take a look!

---