Emotional Trauma At The DMV
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Emotional Trauma At The DMV

Let me bring a little light into your life with this story.

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Emotional Trauma At The DMV
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On the record, I swear on my last bottle of KeVita pineapple peach kombucha that what I'm about to tell you is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

It's junior year and Yours Truly was lagging on the driver's license game. I could sit here and say that I had too many other things on my plate, but I think we both know this comes down to a lack of motivation and maybe some deep-seated, *irrational* fears about growing up. Not worth dissecting at this point in time.

Anyone who's anyone knows the DMV is the civic equivalent of the Met Gala in terms of getting ~on the list~. So when a spot opened up for a Tuesday in March at lunch time, I jumped on it. My mom wrote up an excuse for me to ditch the cafeteria food for the day and I was set to prove myself on the road.

Anyone who's anyone also knows that if you fail your drivers' license test, you're taking that fat loss straight back to school for all your classmates to relish. Fortunately I was well prepared to stop at stop signs, avoid going over any curbs, and maintain a three cars' distance while switching lanes.

GIPHY

Tuesday came and I had taken the psychiatric leap to full hypochondria. The daunting pressure of the day had really started to weigh on me. If I failed, I'd be the laughingstock of my uniform-clad, private, Catholic, all-girls high school (in hindsight, my attendance at that school alone probably put me pretty low on the food chain, regardless of my driving capabilities).

After what felt like an eternity in line at the DMV, it was my turn to go out on the route. A short, frizzy-haired lady waddled up to my car and started with the "where are the windshield wipers?" questions.

Nailed that sh*t, of course.

She gets in the car, and starts to give me the rules. I guess I should have seen this as a red flag, but the the lady was slurring her words and twitching like no one's business. Do what you want with that information. Let's get to the good part.

"Unless I say otherwise, just drive straight," she garbled.

We zoomed out of the parking lot Tokyo Drift style at a safe speed and took a couple turns into the neighborhood.

At this point, the conversation between the proctor and I bottomed out. Again, I guess this is a little weird but I was too busy peeing myself about running a red light to have an aneurism over a lack of small-talk with my new friend.

After no directions for about 10 minutes, though, I was a little worried.

Being the puritan I am, I didn't have the balls to check-in with the proctor, much less take my eyes off the road and look at her. I just kept on driving and assumed when she wanted me to do otherwise, she'd let me know.

Eventually, we hit a red light. With the car stopped, I became acutely aware of a funny noise inside my car. It was a deep, steady grumble--not loud enough to be alarming, but definitely audible.

"Hmmmmm, that's funny, I've never heard my car make that noise," I naively thought.

GIPHY

Finally, the lightbulb in my head turned on. My car doesn't make that noise because that's not a car noise. That's a human being snoring.

GIPHY

In horror, I turned to face the passenger seat. There was my proctor--eyes closed, with her head resting on her shoulder and mouth slightly ajar, snoring away.

I'd been driving for ten f*cking minutes with Sleeping Beauty next to me.

Now, ask yourself--what would you have done? Roll down the window in the hopes the fresh air would wake her? Turn on the radio and increase the volume until she hears it? Go through the In-N-Out drive-through and order a couple burgers? All good choices.

Being the slick, quick-thinking genius I am, I did none of the above. When the light turned green I floored the gas pedal. The proctor slammed against the seatbelt, her DMV paraphernalia flying against the windshield; she was jolted out of her (what I imagine given my ~unparalleled~ driving skills was a peaceful) slumber and fumbled for the clipboard. Sheepishly, she directed me back to the DMV.

Presumably stunned that she'd gone comatose during a driving test, the lady scrambled to make up for lost time. In what appeared to be a frantic trance, she began to adorn my evaluation sheet (that had been up until this point left blank), scribbling what I can only call 'artistic' circles and lines on the paper.

"Well……………. I can't pass you," she stammered after a few minutes.

I was traumatized. What am I going to tell everyone? What's my mom going to tell to the ladies when she meets them for coffee? How many squirrels had I run over to deserve this kind of karma?

GIPHY

Obviously, I handled the situation with the utmost grace.

I screamed, burst into tears, and stormed out of my car with the zooted proctor still inside. My dad, foreseeing the downward spiral that was to come in the next thirty seconds, quickly escorted me out of the hell-hole that is the DMV. By the time we got back to the car she had wisely fled the scene of the crime, and I never saw that little demon again.

Of course, I kept up the dramatics. I went back to school in a catatonic state, and apparently I looked so distraught that my teacher had to pull me out of class to ask what was wrong with me.

How do you explain to your teacher you left school for a driving test only to have an inebriated troll take a cat nap in your car?

I know what you're thinking, this all seems pretty far-fetched. Believe what you want--let's not forget you're the one whose read this far.

Here's the cold, hard facts; I don't have the brain capacity to whip up something this good. The Big Man Upstairs, though, seems like He's got a lot of free time.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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