Incoherent Scribblings

I know that once you move to Texas technically you have 30 days to transfer your vehicle registration and driver’s license from the state in which you last resided to Texas.

However, since this is not only a university town, but a snowbird destination as well, I figured that I could probably get away with an Iowa license and plates for as long as they were valid. Nevertheless, when I planned my budget for this month, the whole car/driver’s license thing received top priority.

On Tuesday I made an appointment to get an oil change but also took the opportunity to get my car inspected so that I could complete the first step in getting it legal. That afternoon I continued my task by downloading the appropriate forms and filling them out. Because I had the paperwork all filled out when I went to the county tax office the next day, I received my new license plates and registration sticker within a possible record time of 20 minutes.

After I replaced the Iowa plates with the Texas ones late this morning I headed down to the Department of Public Safety so that I could fill out yet more paperwork and get my Texas driver’s license. Unlike last year when I had a bit of trouble getting my driver’s license, this time there was no test (written or driving) involved.

I smiled pretty for my picture and noticed that I was wearing the same shirt today as I was wearing a little over a year ago when I smiled for my Iowa driver’s license photo.

Though it was a lot of red tape and took most of the week to fit these things in around my work schedule, I am pleased to say that the whole process went smoothly. And as I put my new driver’s license into my wallet, the nice lady at the driver’s license office actually smiled and said to me, “Congratulations. You’re a Texan now.”

My dad taught me to drive when I was 13 in the good old-fashioned Midwestern way: We took a tractor with a manual transmission into the middle of a field and practiced over and over again until I could drive around the field without killing the tractor.

A year later when I was eligible for my driver’s permit, I had to take the written test four times before I passed it. I suppose if I had actually opened the driver’s manual I might have only had to take it once or twice, but, you know, I was 14 and I knew everything.

When I was a sophomore in high school I took driver’s education and when I finally turned 16 in May I didn’t have to parallel park or worry about who went first at an uncontrolled intersection because I didn’t have to take a driving test. My successful completion of driver’s education was enough to allow me to be on the streets unaccompanied just a few days after my sixteenth birthday.

By the time I took the written test in Mississippi ten years later I had quite a few years of practical driving experience under my belt and, as a result, I passed that test with flying colors.

A couple of years later I was overjoyed to learn that Mississippi had a reciprocal agreement with Germany and I wouldn’t need to spend hundreds of Euros for driving lessons. Once again, I only needed to take a written exam. German driving tests are known for their difficulty, but I was able to pass even their written test with just one error.

I only drove a few times when I was in Germany, but since those licenses never expire I can use my German driver’s license to drive in America for now. And I have: I have been be-bopping around town ever since I got back two weeks ago in my old Chevy Malibu knowing that technically I am legal, but feeling a little bit dishonest about it nevertheless.

Therefore, one of my top priorities upon my return has been to get my Iowa driver’s license. Of course I want to be able to “legally” drive, but, as my American readers will confirm, a driver’s license functions as so much more than merely a license to drive here. And besides, the sooner I get my driver’s license, the sooner I will begin to really re-exist here.

So, last week I picked up the driver’s manual and have been flipping through it at my leisure. I took the written exam yesterday and very nearly had a perfect score. (My only error occurred because I carelessly marked a wrong box.) However, since my last American driver’s license had been expired for more than a year I was told that I would also need to take a driving test.

Even though I have never taken an actual driving test, I made an appointment for this morning with confidence. After all, I have been driving for nearly half of my life and besides, as long as I wear my seatbelt and use my turn signals how tough could it actually be?

When I arrived I joked around with the driving examiner because he had misspelled my name on the form. I proudly handed him my mom’s insurance card and calmly waited as he inspected my mom’s 2001 Pontiac that only has 37,000 miles on it. I didn’t pay attention to what he was marking as we drove around town through uncontrolled intersections and parallel parked. I turned off the radio and remembered to keep both hands on the steering wheel. I was glad I had worn a shirt that complements my complexion and hoped that for once in my life I would take a decent driver’s license photo.

And when we got back to the courthouse 15 minutes later, he told me he doesn’t like the way that I “roll” through stop signs and that he will see me again when I can actually come to a complete stop.

So, I was out browsing around trying to think of something interesting to blog about when I happened upon this, The Friday Foofah. It is just another meme, but one of today’s questions made me think of a time when cars meant something to me.

Do you own a car? What make and model? Do you consider cars a boring point A to B appliance or does talk of V8s and turbo-charging make your eyes light up?

Currently, we have a car but I don’t care too much about it. In fact, I don’t even drive much anymore. It wasn’t always that way though… I used to be quite a car girl.

Not only did I grow up in rural America where cars mean something; my dad was a mechanic for many years before he became a policeman and most of my friends were typical red-blooded Iowa farm boys and mechanics’ children. From a very early age I was surrounded by the magic of cars.

In high school, cruising up and down Main Street was a weekend ritual for us and it was commonplace to gather at the bottom of Main Street or in the grocery store parking lot and peer under the hood for hours at a time. I seldom offered opinion, but was a keen observer and the guys were always impressed with the questions that I asked.

In the Chevy vs. Ford debate I was a firm Ford supporter with Mopar (that would be Chrysler, Plymouth, Dodge for you non-car folk) running a close second. We drove old muscle cars like Thunderbirds, Cameros, Mustangs, Cougars, Chevelles, Monte Carlos, Firebirds, and Chargers. We raced them down dusty gravel roads on Friday and Saturday night and spent all day Sunday tinkering with them.

Even after high school I had car fever and when I got my little red Mustang I loved the hell out of that car. But I also had dreams of a newer, faster, and sleeker car. And just a few months after college graduation I put a downpayment on a sparkling new white Dodge Avenger. I vowed that I loved my car so much I would rather sleep in it than give it up.

However, the harsh realities of adulthood came crashing down on me one freezing Iowa winter day less than a year after I got my car. It came to my attention that I might indeed have to make the decision between paying the rent on my little heated efficiency apartment and making my car payment. My luck improved, I got a better job and it never came to that. Nevertheless, from then on I realized that my car was much more expendable than I would have ever thought.

Some months later I was in a wreck that totaled my little sports car and some months later still the car I got to replace it was repossessed after I made some bad decisions which included trusting my ex-boyfriend to get a job and help me with the payments. (Oh, but that is a whole other blog!)

My car fever was forever extinguished when less than two years after I was dreamily strolling around the showroom floor looking at little red sports cars I was driving a 25 year old four-door Chevy Malibu. (A Chevy! Oh, the horror!) I had learned my lesson: Never again would I put so much enthusiasm into a hunk of metal and an engine. From then on cars just became a way to get from Point A to Point B.

And so, even now when we have a cute little two-door BMW, I am not too attached to it. I don’t sit low in the driver’s seat and fly down the autobahn at 150kph (95mph). I merely load it up with my weekly groceries and tell myself that no matter how fast it might go, how great it would feel to have that steering wheel under my hands, or how interested my high school friends would be to look under the hood and inspect its engine, it is just a car and that it isn’t such a big deal anymore.

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BTW: This is my 300^th blog entry! WOW!!!