No, Your Other Right!

Today was a good day. Guess why? Because I, Stephany Lewis*, have gotten my driver’s permit. Hey, yah. I have now officially driven from my house up the road to our mail box. Am I cool, or am I cool?

This morning, I woke up at eight forty-seven to make up for my late night. Isn’t it funny how you will always tell yourself to be in bed by, say, ten; but end up staying up until twelve-thirty? Yeah, that’s my life. Anyway, my mother had bought some Toaster Streusels from the grocery store, which never ever happens, so I popped one in the toaster and put the frozen icing in the microwave. About fifteen seconds later, I hear a loud pop and see that the tiny, plastic packet of sugar had exploded under the heat and was now all over the microwave. Well, I thought, that’s fun.
I cleaned it up and pulled to pastry out of the toaster. Naturally, it was cold when I bit in, and so I placed it in the microwave and burned myself trying to take it out. I can’t do anything right, can I?
So I grabbed a spatula out of a drawer and lifted it out carefully, then ate from it awkwardly with the long handle sticking up straight in the air.
“Steph?”
I spun around to see my mother, her hair wet from a shower, standing in the middle of the kitchen. She gave me a weird look, but thankfully didn’t say anything while I lowered my breakfast from my mouth. “We’re going to leave in about forty-five minutes to go get your permit,” she said. “Do you think you’ll be ready by then?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation.
As planned, forty minutes later, we were both in the kitchen. But, as had not been planned, we were running around like madwomen trying to find A.) my birth certificate, B.) my Alive At 25 legal document, and C.) the car keys.
“Okay, where was the last place you saw it?”
“Not helping!”

Thankfully, praise God, we were able to locate all three of those items, and were off towards the DMV ten minutes later. Once there, as the sign so indicated, I took a number, and my mother and I found seats to wait in until our number, thirteen had been called. The cool thing about being homeschooled is that the lines at the DMV are not very long during the school day when everyone else is at school, and not here to get their permits. So, within ten minutes, I was occupied taking the vision test.

“Okay, in a second, you’re going to see a blinking light,” the guy instructed me. “Tell me right or left.”

A light blinked on one side, but I couldn’t remember which way was right and which was left. “Uh…”
After that was the written test. The woman at the desk told me I could miss only five, and that I would go take it next to the wall over there.
“There” was a pretty vague description of where she actually wanted me to be. So when I found a seat and was just about to answer Question One, a voice barked, “No! You’re supposed to take it over there.”
She pointed this time to a row of booths where I was to stand as I took the test.
Haha, right. This is why I never go out in public.
What seemed like an hour later, I was finally confident in all of my answers and took my test over to be graded before my very eyes. The entire time I was praying, Please, God, let me pass this test. In the name of Jesus, please let me pass because I didn’t have any instruction and I didn’t study and I don’t want inconvenience my parents to bring me again to retake-
Shiz.
The crossed off the sixth problem and my heart sank. She turned it around and grinned. She freaking grinned at me. Is that how you treat a fifteen-year-old whose hopes have been dashed? No, that’s not.
“So,” she said, starting her sentences off like I normally do. Grr. “You passed the test.”
Whaaat?! No way.

I pumped a fist.

“Technically,” she continued, “you missed six, but because this law changed since this test was written,” she circled one problem marked with red pen, “you only missed five. Congrats!”

Well, hot darn.
She handed me something legal-looking and told me to go give it to this other dude standing across the room so he could put my information into the system. I turned slowly on my heel and caught my mom’s eye and grinned.
I gave the man my height, weight, eye, and hair color, and then we didn’t have my social security number for him. So I called my father, because he usually has the answers to such questions. Unfortunately, he was on a business trip and couldn’t find it for me.
“How about I call the secretary at my work in Denver and she can find it for me in my files?” he rationalized, seeing that my mother did not want to drive all the way back home to tear through his home office.
But, naturally, his secretary didn’t pick up the phone.
Dejected, my mom and I went out to lunch, hoping that he could find it on his computer like he’d told us he might have it on after he came back from his meal with a client. So my mom and I found a Tokyo Joe’s to scarf a teriyaki steak bowl for two while we planned how we could find said combination. My dad called about halfway through our lunch and informed us he couldn’t find it anywhere on his laptop, and that he was really sorry.
I was kind of crushed, but then we got a phone call right after from his secretary giving me the numbers I needed.
Back at the DMV, I had another couple of Epic Steph Moments (capitalization needed) while finishing up the process of becoming permitted.

There was the Asian guy behind the desk who talked entirely too fast. I couldn’t understand a thing he said. “Woodyoolktbeanorgnndonarrr?”
Excuse me?
“Sure,” my mom answered for me.

“Can you sign this?” another lady behind a desk asked me.

Well, certainly, I thought, signing the paper which was placed over a screen so they could record my signature on the computer. It took three tries.
“Put your right index finger on this scanner,” she instructed shortly thereafter.

So I put my right index finger on the scanner.

“Um, your right index finger.”

So I put my middle finger on it instead, thinking maybe it was the wrong finger.

“Right! Index!”

Oh, of course. My other right.