Rule Breaker

For the past 36 days I have been living life on the edge and driving with an expired drivers license. Don't tread on me.

I had the option to renew via the mail which is what I should have done but 5 years ago, I knew the guy taking the picture and I was laughing when he took the picture and he printed the license without showing me the picture. It wasn't a bad picture but it wasn't a "normal" drivers license picture and it sure did make everyone laugh when they saw it. After awhile I decided, it was my attempt to bring joy into random people's lives and if they were having a bad day they could always tell someone about the drivers license they saw at work today. So it really had a happiness multiplication factor which ended today....Sorry.

I also needed to update my stats on my drivers license. In 5 years, I have added on 10 pounds and shrunk an 1". At this pace in 10 years, I will be 210 pounds and 5'10", 20 years - 230 pounds and 5'8", 30 years - 250 pounds and 5'6". This gives me something to be excited about for retirement - not making it too retirement. I am thinking there has to be a reason for the weight gain. Let's think what has happened in the past five years and see if any of them could be responsible for my weight gain - got engaged and married, two children, metabolism changing (I am not 27 anymore or even remotely close), Oreo's in the house (my kryptonite, everybody's got to have something and to be honest any cookie that you can dunk in milk is in danger when it enters my house. It is like death row from them.)...I am blaming my weight gain on two pregnancies. It is rough when you have them so close together. LA was able to loose her weight but mine is still sitting in my midsection - dunlap disease - my belly dun lapped over my belt. I think the females call it their muffin top. I am going to stick with my gut got bigger.

So I wasn't a true rebel...I was but I wasn't. I knew the consequences for my actions. This wasn't my first time driving with an expired license. A number of years back, I had gone even longer (months) and was pretty sure that I was going to have to retake the driving test since it had been so long but thank goodness it hadn't been long enough for that to apply. The DMV will give you like a year to renew but the officer that pulls you over isn't going to be so friendly before your name becomes part of his ticket book. I took a chance and didn't get pulled over. So I cheated the system for 36 days.

The funny thing is that for the past month, I have been within .25 miles from the Ladson DMV. Most days of the week in the morning since LA went back to work, I meet Arlette at the intersection of College Park road and Hwy 78 to drop off Wyatt. It never crossed my mine that the DMV was just up College Park road and to stop by and renew my license until this morning. It was 8:00 and thought that I could beat the rush and get it done quickly. The quickly part was shot as soon as I turned into the parking lot and realized they were not open yet. Didn't quite understand the logic of not opening at 8:00am but it's a state agency and you can expect anything logical out of most of them. I decided to wait and people watch and saw that there was some free entertainment. I didn't know they provided it but you can just hang out in the parking lot and watch people practice parallel parking or actually parallel parking to get their license. I watched for over 20 minutes as a lady (if it would have been a dude, I would have said "dude", this has nothing to do with gender - parallel parking is an gender neutral problem) attempted to parallel park a mini-van. If you don't remember the parallel parking part of your driving test, I am pretty sure you could have parked two cars in the space they give you. It isn't like you are trying to squeeze a Suburban into a spot downtown Charleston. The only thing she could do correct was pulling forward past to where the rear of the car is at the front of the spot. After that, I can't even describe everything that was happening - she almost hit the front post, she cut the wheels too hard and the rear of the mini van was parallel to the curb, she got in the spot but was crooked, she was too far from the curb...etc. (and many of these results were repeated multiple times) There were a couple of times I mumbled under my breath "What in world is she doing", "You're going to hit the post", "Your crooked". I give her an "A" for effort and and "F" for execution. It was almost to the point of me getting out line and going over there to help her but I probably would have made her cry. She was persistent. After each failed attempt, she would pull out of the spot, circle and start over. I don't know if she passed her test but I hope the instructor was watching and new before hand what he/she was getting into before going with her on the driving test. I am pretty sure the number of failures would increase significantly if I was in charge of administering the driving test. I wonder how many close calls they have every day. At least the parallel parking is in a controlled environment.

The DMV catches used to catch a lot of grief but awhile back became the new and improved DMV and my experience this morning was quick. The positions were all filled. In the past they would have 10 places for service and 3 workers. My only complaint this am was the 8:30am opening time and they didn't open at 8:30am. They opened at 8:32am by my watch but I am sure my watch is wrong.

If you are bored, I am sure the adventure of parallel parking takes places all day long and into the evening. Call me and we will grab a bag of chips and cooler of beer (or your favorite beverage) and go to the DMV for some laughs or the boat landing which would is a whole different topic for me to blog about - watching people back a trailer down a boat ramp.