Story of the Day 6/ 17/ 2011

It has been a long day.

Of course, part of the reason it feels so long is that it actually started yesterday. Or, more accurately, the evening before yesterday, Wednesday night.

Since Sarah is now the proud owner of a pair of glasses, and there fore can take the written test to get her driver’s license learner’s permit, we have to take her to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) to take the test.

And not only does she need to wear her glasses to pass the vision test, and correctly answer 40 of the 50 questions to pass the written test, but she also has to give proof that she is Sarah Leah Margolis-Greenbaum, not that anyone who isn’t Sarah Leah Marolis-Greenbaum would be likely to be able to spell that name, but just top be on the safe side, the DMV requires 5 pieces of identification: a birth certificate (or proof of naturalization), a social security card, 2 official documents attesting to a current Indiana address (such as bank statements, rental agreements, or a letter from a parole officer) and a cheek swab for a DNA test. Okay, they do not require the cheek swab, which is kind of a shame, because as it turned out, that would have been the easiest thing to obtain.

You see, Sarah doesn’t have a bank statement, because she doesn’t have a bank account. This is because her parents are evil and they have never allowed her to have more than 25 cents at a time, and they do not give her anything resembling an allowance. Of course, since they have previously gone broke paying for the older siblings’ college educations it is at least one step up from their having squandered the funds on booze and bimbos. However, the government doesn’t seem to care about these distinctions. Also, Sarah’s parents have been negligent in the way in which they have raised her and she has never even met a parole officer, none-the-less have her very own one to attest to her residence.
Sarah does, however, have a report card issued from a local public school with a local mailing address, and she does have a mother who has a retirement account listing her as a beneficiary, not that it will do Sarah much good, since the retirement account is rather anemic, but it is the thought (and the documentation) that counts.

However, now we are down to the tough items.

Sarah had planned to take the test on Thursday, since, if she failed, she would remember all of the questions and study them thoroughly and be able to go back and take the test on Friday, which constitutes (according to the test booklet) “The next business day.”
So, Wednesday evening, I left a message on the bathroom mirror (hey every family has to have good communication, and this is ours), for my husband to leave me her social security card and birth certificate.

And, Thursday morning, I woke to find that he had left for work and not left them out for us.

So, like any good nag, I mean wife, I called him at work several times and extracted the important information that the documents were in the firebox, where the firebox was and where the key for the firebox probably was. I extorted this information from a rather unwilling husband- a situation which made Sarah gripe and grumble about her father’s attitude in helping her to obtain said Learner’s Permit, but, as I explained to Ms. Sarah, if I were Larry, I would also not want me pawing through his bureau drawers in search for a small key. After all, He is neat and organized and I am…a disaster.

After much searching several very colorful 4-letter words, I was…unsuccessful.
With promises of a chocolate milkshake and heading out first thing in the morning- TOMORROW, I finally calmed Sarah down, and we awaited my husband’s arrival home, and the liberation for the important documents from the firebox.

Again, I left a note taped to the bathroom mirror.
This morning, I awoke to find a note on the bathroom mirror telling me that Sarah’s social security card was now on Larry’s bureau-which it was, but without it’s companion document, the birth certificate.
Once again, I called my husband and what I learned was that he did not have the birth certificate.

Again, I used one of God’s greatest creations, the Internet, and found out how to go about ordering a copy of the birth certificate. For only $36, I could have it delivered by certified something-or-the –other, in only one week. And for only $14, we can have it, also by some –sort-or-the-other of registered mail, in only 3 –4 weeks. Needless to say, I was trembling over the prospect of telling this to Sarah, when she woke up. As a matter of fact, I very carefully did NOT wake her up…until about 11 AM.

Well, it was not as bad as I feared. Sarah did not hit me, nor scream- at least not very loudly. However, we did make a special, before Shabbat, very stressed out trip to the Marion County Health Department. There we took a number and sat in some rather uncomfortable molded plastic chairs, and waited. And waited. And waited. Although, really, it wasn’t as bad as all that, except that, when they gave us the $9 copy of the birth certificate, I realized that the names were wrong. Oh, it was Sarah’s birth certificate, all right, but Larry and I were not the parents. It was some other couple with very long names. For some reason, our names had been doubled. Maybe this was some sort of a snide comment about the weight I have gained, since Sarah was born, but that cannot be the reason for Larry now having 4 names, since he is still the same pant size as when I married him, 26 years ago.

Well, after a bit of explaining, we were given a corrected copy of the birth certificate, and, once again, Larry and I were the parents of Ms. Sarah.

Now, the afternoon, was disappearing, and instead of driving al the way back to the DMV near our home, I texted Aaron and asked him where the closets DMV was to the Health Department. The health department is about 39th street and North Keystone.
In only a few minutes, Aaron had texted me back that there was a DMV conveniently located at 5151 South Meridian. Wow, only about 90 blocks south. Fortunately, I have more directional sense than he has, and I ignored his suggestion. With only a little trouble we did find a DMV to far from where ewes were.

This DMV was a lot like our local one. It was painted an odd color of greenish something-or-other and it had those very familiar uncomfortable molded plastic chairs. Yes, the state must buy these in bulk. And it had the same long lines. And it had a similar roped off area for people to sit while taking the written test.
This is important, because you wouldn’t want anyone taking the test to have someone help them, or give them an answer, or anything like that.

Sarah was nervous and told me she was afraid she would fail the test.

While we were standing in line to obtain a copy of the written test for Sarah to take, Sarah observed the two women sitting in the roped off area. “ Mom, “ she signed to me, with a rather uncomfortable look on her face, “That woman over there is using the book to answer the questions!”

I looked back, and Sarah was right. The woman was holding her DMV booklet to prepare for the test in one hand, and the pencil with which she was writing answers on her test in her other hand.

“Well, “ I told Sarah, “At least you would never stoop as low as to do that!”
To which Sarah agreed.

A few minutes later, I had my butt parked in one of the molded plastic chairs on the waiting room side of the roped off area, and Sarah had herself parked in one of the molded plastic chairs on the test taking side, with the woman who was using the book sitting right behind her. (See the photo.)

Sarah finished the test in about 10 minutes, and she put it on the pile to be graded. While we sat and waited, and waited, and waited, the woman with the test preparation booklet kept working on her test, and working on it, and working on it.

Eventually, we were called to give the cheek swab, and the other documents, and Sarah who had passed the exam, had her photo taken for her learner’s permit. Then, just when we thought all of the hard testing and documentation as over, the assistant manager of the DMV (who happened to be the person doing Sarah’s paperwork), asked her a series of difficult questions.
“How tall are you?”
Well, a guess will work, right?
“5’9”? 5’10”?”
She stood up and the man selected the height he thought she looked to be.
“What do you weigh?”
Sarah actually knew the exact answer to that one.
“What color eyes do you have?”
“Blue? No, wait. Green.”
“What color is your hair?”
A smile crossed Sarah’s face, “Auburn.”
The man wrote this down.
“Do you have any mental, physical or hearing disabilities that would affect your driving?”
“No.”
The man looked at Sarah. Of course, Sarah is Deaf and I have been signing is questions to her and voicing her signed replies to him.
He told us we had to wait a minute while he went to speak with his supervisor.
As he got up, Sarah said to me, “I am deaf. It does not dis my ability.”
I told the man this.
Apparently, his supervisor agreed. She said to him, “Well, I can’t see why it would affect her driving.”

When we finally left the DMV, that same lady was still sitting and reading through her preparation booklet looking for the answers.

I have a suspicion she didn’t pass.