An experiance that I'll never have to go through again

Although I have been under the impression that 2 o'clock in the morning isn't a common time to write posts, I don't really have anything to do right now, and I'm not tired yet, and I can't go to bed with a steaming hot cup of tea undrunk, so I figured I'd try to get a little caught up on here.

I know this is practically dragging up ancient history, but I want to recount my drivers licence experience before it fades to shadows, hidden in the mists of memory. That way I'll be able to read this post when I'm old and senile, and tell it to my children and grandchildren until they can repeat it verbatim.

So, I spent the 2 hours before my test trying to learn how to parallel park. My only previous experience backing up had been - working the pedals while Mark steered. Periodically parents and siblings would pop out and share their wise, knowledgeable, but all equally unhelpful advise (unhelpful, that is, to someone who really has no idea what they're doing, and is about to spaz out.) Not feeling terribly confident in my ability to park within the legal limit about 1 out of every 5 times, we left late, arrived at the wrong DMV, and luckily arrived at the correct DMV a mile up the road with 2 minutes left on the clock. After going throughout the preliminary check-out: insurance, registration, brakes, seat belts, stupid little red sticker-thing for the license plate... I was then deserted by Sandra, and left on my own with a highly frightening little Spanish woman with a sweet voice behind a kind smile. (When my adrenaline is high, I frighten easily.) So first was the parallel parking. After checking all mirrors and seat belts a zillion times, and using the proper signals, and resisting the strong impulse to close my eyes and just hope for the best, I parked perfectly, first try! The instructor glanced out the window, and told me to move on, apparently oblivious to my burning desire to do a back-flip-flop (if I had known how to do one, that is). I moved on, still trying to remember all the little details I had been reminded of, checking all the mirrors every couple of seconds, glancing at the speedometer, and see that I'm going...35 in a 15!
{Great. You probably just blew it. You parked perfectly, which was just a freak chance, of course, and you'll never be able to do it again, and how do you blow it? Not by an understandable overlook, but by speeding! The most obvious thing to avoid. If you pass now, it'll be amazing. You can't get much more ridiculous then SPEEDING ON A ROAD TEST!!!! What could possible be worse? Maybe you could just crash and be done with it. Maybe you could...oh.my.goodness. Maybe you could roll through 2 STOP SIGNS while yelling at yourself for your stupidity!}

At that point I was finally able to snap out of it, and make no more mistakes, probably because I no longer really cared if I made any more mistakes, because I figured it was all over. I did manage to forget to use my blinker when I pulled over to pull my K-turn, (good thing K-turns are easy, because I had forgotten they were going to test me on it, so I had never done one before.) I finally made it back to the parking lot, fully prepared and fearing the worst, but with just enough hope left to make it a painful few minutes. She finally quit writing on her little pad... and gave a very unclamactic ending to this story.

She passed me!


(As I just took a sip of freezing cold tea, I have come to the conclusion that this post has taken me too long to write, which means I am either an extraordinarily slow typist, or write posts that are far too long to keep anyone's attention, neither of which is even a tolerably attractive thought.)