"Just as my suspension ended, I got pulled over.
The policeman said to me, “Do you know why you got pulled over?”
I said, “No.”
He said, “Your tags are expired.”
I was shocked. I didn’t think people really kept track of their tags.
He said, “Can I see your license?”
I started crying.
The kids said, from the back seat, “Are you in trouble? Are you going to jail? Did you break the law?”
I asked the policeman if I could get out of the car and talk to him because I didn’t want my kids to hear.
He said okay.
I explained that I didn’t have a license. I told him I’ve been trying to get one but I couldn’t and then I got it suspended and I said please don’t make it so it’s suspended again. I’ll never get a license.
He gave the kids stickers and coloring books while he made calls on his radio and wrote tickets in his car. He ticketed me for the tags but not the license.
I went back to get a license and I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the right combination of name and address to match everything. I had changed my name and where I live so often that nothing matched. I went home discouraged.
...Slowly, I started taking steps to get my license. I hired someone to help me. I was making progress. I had a Wisconsin State ID and a social security card. And I was gearing up to the take the written exam.
To give you and idea of how hard it is for me to take a standardized test, when I took the GRE I scored in the 17th percentile. I think that’s where people score when English is not their first—or second—language.
My son sat next to me while I surreptitiously popped a Xanax and started the test.
The DMV person told my son he had to sit farther away from me.
There are a lot of questions that I’ve studied for. For example, I know that if you hit a deer and you do not take it, the next driver can take the deer home for himself.
I pass the written test. The Farmer and Jeanenne have a mini-celebration.
Jeanenne drives me to the DMV in Darlington to take the road test. I wait too long at intersections but they still pass me.
Then they let me take six photos until I get one I like.
And Jeanenne says, “It’s amazing that even when you are trying to follow the rules and be like everyone else, you still get people to make exceptions for you. “
But look. It’s a good picture:"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I rate my executive functioning at -6P. How about you?
24 comments:
I can see why her name is not "Penelope Brain".
lol she takes some getting used to.
My executive function is pretty damned good.
Except when it gets clouded by the rear end of a really attractive female.
Ass man?
I take all parts into consideration.
Quite so.
I'm not very sympathetic to Ms. Trunk's plight regarding a driver's license.
I have some responsibilities for an adult learning disabled sibling. She had meningitis at age 9; the high fever cause her brain to be damaged. We have had her IQ measured - it's 77 on a good day.
With that impairment, her father worked with her most nights after dinner, working through the WI drivers license study book. She passed the written exam on her second try, and her behind the wheel test on the third try. She received her DL when she was 18. She's now 62, and has faithfully had her address changed every time she moved.
If Penelope Trunk has the ability to maintain a blog, and to hire herself out to give others life advice, she is damn well smart enough to keep her DL updated.
Isn't the loss of executive function one of the keys to identifying Alzheimer's?
Good on your sis, Michael :)
Yes, Ms. Trunk is running a blog to raise money. I disliked her the first few times I read her. I came back after a couple years. I think her heart is in the right place, and I'll give her a pass for how the license tale went down. I can sympathize on many levels. I could tell you a tale of renewing my license that involves tears, depression, and raising kids eight hours away from family.
God, I love that woman.
I certainly think so, Christy.
You read her, phx?
From time to time, usually when someone links to her. Always a good read. That post was a good 'un.
"I told him I’ve been trying to get one but I couldn’t and then I got it suspended and I said please don’t make it so it’s suspended again."
What?
I have read her on and off. Some of her stuff is very good, at other times it's infuriating.
One of the stupidest comments on that story was:
"Thanks for pointing out how hard it is to get a photo ID … something that seems to be lost on a good percentage of the population of Wisconsin who doesn’t think that requiring a photo ID to vote disenfranchises voters."
Sorry, people who cannot manage to get an ID should not be voting just like (in her post) they should not be driving.
What a dingbat. She evidently can't accomplish the most basic of life tasks.
People like this are a drain on society and if the shit hits the fan are the first ones that I will push over a cliff so that the rest of us can survive.
Executive function 10+++
I could tell you a tale of renewing my license that involves tears, depression, and raising kids eight hours away from family.
How hard can this be? Seriously. Are other States different. All you have to do is pay attention and follow instructions.
In California, you get a notice n the mail that your license is up for renewal in case you didn't notice that there is an expiration date on the license itself. It tells you if you must take a written test or appear in person.
I'll likely have to go in and renew since I've already had two extensions by mail. The worst part is having your picture taken. Gross photos.
"How hard can this be? "
The DMV, being a gubmint entity, can make it agonizing.
Recently my son discovered a typo on his driver's license. Wrong birth month. It took a handful of office visits and more phone calls to find out what the true corrective procedure was.
Shit, illegal immigrants all over, driving without licenses, with fake licenses, and given licenses even if illegal, and we got hassled like I was asking to get outta jail early or sumpin'.
I half expected a bone marrow study.
The DMV, being a gubmint entity, can make it agonizing.
This is true. On the other hand if they like you... The clerk told me my eye exam was "close enough" (it wasn't) and gave me a pass on the corrective lenses last time.
DBQ, I can't recall exactly, but now I think more, I think I lost my driver's license, and therefore did not have a photo ID to get a new license. Or did I let my old one expire and not send back the renewal in time?
'Grats on the 10+++.
Good executive function may be all I have going for me, but it's enough.
The thing is when you move your tag renewal is not forwarded like everything else is. It is unfair. It is a set up! Because you moved. Yes, protection, yes, yes, yes, but mostly protection for State clerks, not protection for the fair citizen who moved and who notified every little thing except perhaps missed the special treatment demanded by motor vehicles, the retards, make people miss for sinitster self-serving purpoises perpisses purporsicis reasons. Bah humbug.
DBQ is right (does that even need to be said anymore?). The CA DMV makes it simple.
My DL expired last October without me knowing it. I only learned when I was looking at a car to buy and wanted to test drive it.
Renewed online, but didn't realize my address was old (we've moved 4 times in the last couple of years). So, it got sent to an old address and I never got it.
December comes, 2 months later, and I need to get the license. Make an appointment for the DMV, online system gives me an open slot within the week. Go to the DMV at my appointment time, literally within 10 minutes I'm back at my car.
Drivers license renewed, address updated. They didn't even charge me extra. I had already paid for the renewal and they got a new one sent to me.
She said that people thanked her for pointing out that she had poor executive function but she didn't say whats strategies they could use to work around it.
She hired someone to help her get her license. Maybe if she hired someone sooner in the process it would have saved a lot of difficulty for her.
With that impairment, her father worked with her most nights after dinner, working through the WI drivers license study book. She passed the written exam on her second try, and her behind the wheel test on the third try. She received her DL when she was 18. She's now 62, and has faithfully had her address changed every time she moved.
If Penelope Trunk has the ability to maintain a blog, and to hire herself out to give others life advice, she is damn well smart enough to keep her DL updated.
Have a cousin who was hit by a car at 15. He has frontal lobe damage. He has a DL. So yeah, I really can't understand this either...
Incidentally, in AZ they give you a license for something like 30 years. So when we moved out of state and had to renew after 5, we forgot for a little while. but we still got it done. And I wouldn't have blamed anyone else for my blunder if I had been pulled over during the interim.
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