BABY YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR!

We almost had a crisis of epic proportions.


Tiny Baby had his DRIVING test appointment yesterday at 9:45.
He was a little irritated that it just happened to be scheduled during his "off" hour.
I mean really, it should have been scheduled during Calculus or Chemistry.  Duh!
What's the point of leaving school when you are supposed to be leaving school?


We were prepared though -
Driving log - check
Birth certificate - check
Car Registration - check
Proof of insurance - check
Certificate of Completion of Drivers' Ed - check
Permit - check


We got to our appointment 20 minutes early because we are compulsive weird that way.
We went to Station 1.
She asked for Parker's permit.
He opened his wallet to slide it out of the little, clear, plastic pocket.
I wish you could have seen his face.
It looked just like this -

No permit.

We had plenty of time, so we decided to run home and look for it although we had no clue why it wasn't in the plastic sleeve nor where it could be.

The Station 1 greeter lady chased out into the parking lot and said, "Wait.  Come back in.  Since you have his birth certificate, we can get you a replacement permit and then you don't have to go all the way home."

Cool!  I never knew DMV people could be so helpful!

She checks over the rest of the paperwork.

"Wait!  Where is the Certificate of Completion of Drivers' Ed?"

Don't ask why we need that.

Our laws have changed about 10 billion times since my first received his license 5 years ago and basically it is nigh to impossible to get your license when you are 16.

I point out the little 2X4 card that says "Proof of Completion of Drivers' Ed."

"Oh no!  This isn't it.  The certificate is 'official.'  It's 8 1/2 X 11 and has to have the original signature."

"Well this is the only thing we got from Drivers' Ed."

"Ah....I see this card has a staple in it.  It must have been stapled to the 'official' certificate."

"No, I stapled it the drivers' ed book because it was small and I didn't want to lose it.  Here are all the books and papers he received in Drivers' Ed."

Bottom line.  We were missing the certificate.  We would have to leave and go find it....but we still had plenty of time.

We looked in the two places it would be, if we had received it, but we knew we had never seen it before in our lives.

Parker was crestfallen.

Meanwhile, he found his permit................in his wallet.

It was behind his school ID.

But it didn't matter.

No certificate.  No license.

Because we kept every scrap of paper from Drivers' Ed, I had his teacher's cell number.

I called Mike and explained what happened and asked if we could get a replacement certificate.  I figured I could pick it up later in the day and we could start the process over tomorrow.

"Well, I'm on my way to a nursing home about 15 minutes away from you and I happen to have my Drivers' Ed stuff with me.  If you want to meet me, I can give you a certficate."

Needless to say, I did not let Parker drive.

We met Mike.  He apologized if he did not give us the cetificate.  We apologized if we had lost it.  He mentioned that rescheduling the driving test with the DMV would take 4-6 weeks.

Seeing Parker's devastated face, he said, "Actually, I'm giving a driving test his afternoon at 2:30.  It should take about 30 minutes.  If you want to meet me at 3:00, I can give you the driving test then.  Oh, but it's the driving school rules that it has to be in my car."

Let me think about it - no 4-6 week wait, Parker could still get his license today, no grumpy DMV employee, driving Mike's Honda or Toyota instead of our giant Yukon XL, driving on the same streets Parker drove for drivers' ed.  Hmmm........."Yes!  Yes! We'll meet you."

PARKER PASSED!

Suprise!  What kind of Drivers' Ed teacher would fail his own student?  Wouldn't he look bad?  Wouldn't parents question where their good money had gone?

Parker did fine. He only missed one point!  Yippee!

And then Mike's next words were music to my ears.

"You don't have to go back to the DMV."

Because the driving test was done by a state certified instructor, we could take his test results and all of our paperwork to a different county office.
WooHoo!  I LOVE YOU MIKE!

We were the ONLY ones in the county office.

We were in and out of there with Parker's license in 7 minutes!

Congratulations to Parker!

Special thanks to Mike!