Testing Times

With our first anniversary in Naperville looming, we had one last thing to achieve before Thursday – getting our Illinois driver’s licenses. I imagine many people wouldn’t consider this much of an achievement, but since it took Grumpy five attempts to pass in England, and me two, it wasn’t something we were looking forward to.
“We really must get this done,” I said last week. “Look, if we fail, we’ll just try again. There are enough kids doing it here every day. How hard can it be?”
I thought I was being very calm and reasonable.
Grumpy started pacing.
“Yes, but what if we don’t get it? If we fail a test, can we drive until we pass it? How will I get to work? I can’t learn all these rules at my age! I had to take a tranquilizer to pass in England!”
Grumpy looked as if he had pressed the panic button which short circuits his brain from time to time.
So this past week, I have spent every spare minute carefully learning the rules of the road and driving everywhere as if I had an imaginary driving instructor next to me.
The evening before the test, I asked Grumpy to ask me some questions from the book.
“You’ll have to read the book to me,” he snapped. “I can’t learn this. You read it and I’ll learn it that way.”
“I thought you’d been reading it all week,” I said. “I have. I feel pretty confident actually.”
I wasn’t really being smug, ok I was, but I’ve had to put up of years of him moaning I never go anywhere, so I wanted to prove I had mastered something about driving, at least from a theoretical view point.
“Just read me the book,” he growled. “All of it.”
“Ok,” I began, in my calmest, and no doubt most irritating voice. “This edition of the Illinois Rules of the Road is as accurate as possible.”
“Not that bit,” he screamed. “The rules, the rules.”
After a sleepless night, Grumpy went to work, promising to return early so we could get to the test center. Twenty minutes before he was due to leave, I got a phone call.
“Bad news,” he said. “We have to get someone to drive us. We can’t drive alone.”
“Why not?”
“Apparently they might ask us if we drove ourselves and it’s illegal. Spike told me.”
Thirty minutes later Buffy and I were in my tiny car, with Grumpy squished into the back with his knees under his chin.
“Thanks so much for this,” I said. “It’s really nice of you.”
“No problem,” said Buffy gaily. “It’ll be fun.”
Grumpy didn’t seem so sure.
“I know exactly where the center is. Off we go,” she said, attempting to drive off with the hand brake on. “My son passed his test there recently. First time.”
I could hear Grumpy’s teeth grinding behind me.
Once in the center we waited in line to be called to the counter. Buffy settled down with a book, giving encouraging smiles. Grumpy glowered at her whilst still babbling about what would happen if we failed.
I presented my paperwork to the cashier who started happily filling in forms. For a moment I honestly thought we had made a terrible mistake and could just buy a new license without having to take a test at all.
“Just take this over there, sit down and you can start the written test,” she said.
Guess I was wrong.
In England you have to answer about 100 questions on a computer screen, followed by a 45 minute road test. In Naperville, we had a sheet of 20 questions, plus 15 road signs and a ten minute drive around a car lot and a couple of side roads.
I handed in my paper and nervously waited for the results. Grumpy had started just after me. I looked around to see him almost in tears, miming that he had failed.
“Just guess if you don’t know,” I tried to whisper.
“No talking,” snapped the cashier, handing me back some more papers. I was almost hoping I had failed so Grumpy wouldn’t feel so bad.
“You’ve passed. Now go outside, move your car into one of the bays outside the door and wait for the examiner.”
All the way through my tiny road test, I kept imaging Grumpy crying all over Buffy as he waited for the deportation police to arrive.
Luckily it didn’t upset my driving performance. If I say so myself, I drove perfectly, if you don’t include that red stop sign I somehow missed.
I returned to the center trying not to gloat too much, but couldn’t help myself.
“I passed!” I beamed.
“Me too,” said Grumpy. “Give me the keys, I just have to do the driving part now.”
Afterwards, as we both sat fondling our shiny new licenses, I asked Grumpy what had happened on the written test.
“I thought you had to get all the road signs correct, and I knew I had got a couple wrong,” he said. “As it turned out I must have got enough right overall.”
“That’s because just this afternoon I discovered an extra one on the inside back cover of the rules of the road book,” I said. “I forgot to tell you about it.”
“Typical,” he replied. “All your fault as usual.”