Max and the Driving Test
Once Max finished the final segment of driver's ed, it was time for The Test. In Michigan, this means a parking test, a road test, and a few verbal questions. I made an appointment for such a test, and told Max when it was.
"It's too soon!" he squawked. "I'm not ready!"
"Too late," I said. "The fee is non-refundable. But we can practice a few moves."
Because I've been through this with Sasha and Aran, I knew what the parking lot test would be--backing into a space and pulling out of it; right-angle parking; and parallel parking. The parallel parking is the killer, and we live in a place where no one parks parallel, so Max didn't have much practice with it. I set up obstacles in the driveway to represent cars and had him pull in and out of the "space" until he had it down pretty well.
Today, we drove up to the test site, a public parking lot, and arrived several minutes early. Max was both nervous and excited and trying to hide both facts. The parking lot test was all set up with cones and things, but there was no sign of the proctor. We figured someone else was taking a road test, so I had Max do the parallel parking a couple times. He did poorly the first couple of times, but the third time, he got it. We were just pulling out of the space when the proctor arrived in the car of another teenaged applicant. She waved us out of the area.
"You're not supposed to be in the test zone," she admonished.
She had no idea we'd been practicing, and I certainly wasn't going to tell her!
We waited a considerable time while she talked with the other applicant in his car. At last she came over to us and introduced herself as K--. There was paperwork and a bathroom break, and then the test began.
For the parking lot test, I wasn't allowed to be in car with Max, and it goes without saying I wasn't allowed to coach him. I actually didn't want to watch, partly because I hate watching this kind of thing and partly because I didn't want Max to get nervous over me watching. So I went for a walk, though I had to stay in view of the car for legal reasons. I only caught glimpses of the test. Later I learned Max had done very well with the regular parking and backing up. During the parallel parking, he turned wrong and asked the proctor if he could start over. She apparently wasn't allowed to respond, so he pulled out of the space and started over. This time, he did it without a hitch.
Then came the road test. K-- went over the rules of the test (since Max was a minor, I had to be in the car; I couldn't coach him; seat belts buckled; etc. etc.), and the three of us were off.
K-- was a chatty person, and I deliberately kept up conversation going. This was strategy from me--if Max felt we weren't paying attention to him, he might be a little less nervous. And if he made a mistake that was borderline, K-- might be more likely to rule in his favor if we were happy, chatty people with her.
We drove around Clarkston. I caught a number of test strategies she used, mostly with lane changes. Max favored staying in the left lane, and K-- kept testing him on lane changes by forcing him over to the right, which is the more difficult lane change. I wanted to tell Max to get his butt over into the right lane and stay there so she'd have to use an easier lane change (from right to left) for the testing, but I couldn't, and he didn't twig to it. But he didn't make any major mistakes.
At one point, he was waiting at a red light to turn left, but he hadn't turned on his signal. He hadn't noticed, but I had, and so had K--. The light stayed red. I was trying to think of a way to point out the problem to Max without seeming to do so. Maybe I could say something like, "Where the heck are we, anyway? We're turning LEFT so that'll take us where now?" and hope he would get the hint.
I was just about to try just that when Max noticed the problem and turned his signal on a few seconds before the light went green. Cool!
At last, we arrived back at the parking lot, and here K-- turned more difficult. She concealed her clipboard with the totals on it, announced that the score was already decided, and quizzed Max extensively on how he thought he did and what he could have done better. Then she asked me how I thought he did and what =I= thought he could have done better. Then she talked some more. I was just about to snatch the clipboard and beat her over the head with it while I examined the totals when she said that he had passed.
Yay! And sheesh.
This was actually a first. Aran and Sasha took the test three and two times, respectively. Max was very happy, and so was I!
But . . .
K-- pointed out that there was a mistake on his Segment II certificate. It had the wrong day for his birthday. She said we could get a corrected certificate by driving out to the driving school headquarters (45 minutes away), or we could get one in the mail (after how long?). "But if I were you," she added, perhaps in recompense for hiding his scores, "I would just go to the Secretary of State's office and bluff your way through. They might not notice, or if they do, they might not care, since you'll have his correct birth date on all his other paperwork."
This is what we did. There was an SoS office only fifteen minutes away from the test site, and we could just get there before closing, so why not go for it? (In Michigan, the SoS handles car stuff, not the DMV. We're weird that way.) We headed over and, to our happy surprise, found the wait was projected only at 25 minutes. At the SoS office, this is a major score--an hour is more normal, and two isn't unusual. They use an electronic check-in that sends text messages to your phone telling you how close you are to the front of the line, which I absolutely love. You can wait in line at a coffee shop or while you're grabbing some groceries.
Max and I adjourned to a cafe two stores down for some celebratory smoothies, and when I got a ten-minute warning text, we headed back. In due time, we appeared before the clerk, an older, blond woman with big, red lipstick.
It was a little nervous for us as she went through everything. I opted to get Max the enhanced license, which allows re-entry from Canada without a passport, but which involves a little more paperwork. I handed over Max's birth certificate. It's from Michigan but is labeled "delayed live birth," meaning he was born in Ukraine but was issued a certificate here in America. This aspect of the certificate made it unacceptable for the license, enhanced or not, because apparently a three-year-old is at risk of being a terrorist laying down a long-term plan to get an American driver's license 13 years later.
"I'll need more," she said. "Like his social security--"
I handed the card to her before she even finished. The lipstick lady checked her list.
"Actually, this won't do it, either," she said regretfully . "I need his naturalization papers or his adoption--"
I handed it over before she finished again. Going through the original adoption process has made me hyper-organized about government shit, and I had brought with me every form I owned.
The lipstick lady shuffled papers, clicked on her computer, shuffled more papers, and then picked up the Segment II certificate, the one with the wrong birth date on it. Max and I both held our breaths. She looked more closely at it, and we were both sure she was going to object. Then she picked up a staple remover, plucked a staple from the corner, and dropped the form into her scanner without a word. The moment she was done, I whisked it into my handy manila folder.
Whew.
She took Max's picture, handed him a temp license, and told him his permanent license would arrive in two weeks.
All done!
This evening, Max took the car out for a little drive by himself for the first time. He said it was weird, and strangely lonely. :)
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"It's too soon!" he squawked. "I'm not ready!"
"Too late," I said. "The fee is non-refundable. But we can practice a few moves."
Because I've been through this with Sasha and Aran, I knew what the parking lot test would be--backing into a space and pulling out of it; right-angle parking; and parallel parking. The parallel parking is the killer, and we live in a place where no one parks parallel, so Max didn't have much practice with it. I set up obstacles in the driveway to represent cars and had him pull in and out of the "space" until he had it down pretty well.
Today, we drove up to the test site, a public parking lot, and arrived several minutes early. Max was both nervous and excited and trying to hide both facts. The parking lot test was all set up with cones and things, but there was no sign of the proctor. We figured someone else was taking a road test, so I had Max do the parallel parking a couple times. He did poorly the first couple of times, but the third time, he got it. We were just pulling out of the space when the proctor arrived in the car of another teenaged applicant. She waved us out of the area.
"You're not supposed to be in the test zone," she admonished.
She had no idea we'd been practicing, and I certainly wasn't going to tell her!
We waited a considerable time while she talked with the other applicant in his car. At last she came over to us and introduced herself as K--. There was paperwork and a bathroom break, and then the test began.
For the parking lot test, I wasn't allowed to be in car with Max, and it goes without saying I wasn't allowed to coach him. I actually didn't want to watch, partly because I hate watching this kind of thing and partly because I didn't want Max to get nervous over me watching. So I went for a walk, though I had to stay in view of the car for legal reasons. I only caught glimpses of the test. Later I learned Max had done very well with the regular parking and backing up. During the parallel parking, he turned wrong and asked the proctor if he could start over. She apparently wasn't allowed to respond, so he pulled out of the space and started over. This time, he did it without a hitch.
Then came the road test. K-- went over the rules of the test (since Max was a minor, I had to be in the car; I couldn't coach him; seat belts buckled; etc. etc.), and the three of us were off.
K-- was a chatty person, and I deliberately kept up conversation going. This was strategy from me--if Max felt we weren't paying attention to him, he might be a little less nervous. And if he made a mistake that was borderline, K-- might be more likely to rule in his favor if we were happy, chatty people with her.
We drove around Clarkston. I caught a number of test strategies she used, mostly with lane changes. Max favored staying in the left lane, and K-- kept testing him on lane changes by forcing him over to the right, which is the more difficult lane change. I wanted to tell Max to get his butt over into the right lane and stay there so she'd have to use an easier lane change (from right to left) for the testing, but I couldn't, and he didn't twig to it. But he didn't make any major mistakes.
At one point, he was waiting at a red light to turn left, but he hadn't turned on his signal. He hadn't noticed, but I had, and so had K--. The light stayed red. I was trying to think of a way to point out the problem to Max without seeming to do so. Maybe I could say something like, "Where the heck are we, anyway? We're turning LEFT so that'll take us where now?" and hope he would get the hint.
I was just about to try just that when Max noticed the problem and turned his signal on a few seconds before the light went green. Cool!
At last, we arrived back at the parking lot, and here K-- turned more difficult. She concealed her clipboard with the totals on it, announced that the score was already decided, and quizzed Max extensively on how he thought he did and what he could have done better. Then she asked me how I thought he did and what =I= thought he could have done better. Then she talked some more. I was just about to snatch the clipboard and beat her over the head with it while I examined the totals when she said that he had passed.
Yay! And sheesh.
This was actually a first. Aran and Sasha took the test three and two times, respectively. Max was very happy, and so was I!
But . . .
K-- pointed out that there was a mistake on his Segment II certificate. It had the wrong day for his birthday. She said we could get a corrected certificate by driving out to the driving school headquarters (45 minutes away), or we could get one in the mail (after how long?). "But if I were you," she added, perhaps in recompense for hiding his scores, "I would just go to the Secretary of State's office and bluff your way through. They might not notice, or if they do, they might not care, since you'll have his correct birth date on all his other paperwork."
This is what we did. There was an SoS office only fifteen minutes away from the test site, and we could just get there before closing, so why not go for it? (In Michigan, the SoS handles car stuff, not the DMV. We're weird that way.) We headed over and, to our happy surprise, found the wait was projected only at 25 minutes. At the SoS office, this is a major score--an hour is more normal, and two isn't unusual. They use an electronic check-in that sends text messages to your phone telling you how close you are to the front of the line, which I absolutely love. You can wait in line at a coffee shop or while you're grabbing some groceries.
Max and I adjourned to a cafe two stores down for some celebratory smoothies, and when I got a ten-minute warning text, we headed back. In due time, we appeared before the clerk, an older, blond woman with big, red lipstick.
It was a little nervous for us as she went through everything. I opted to get Max the enhanced license, which allows re-entry from Canada without a passport, but which involves a little more paperwork. I handed over Max's birth certificate. It's from Michigan but is labeled "delayed live birth," meaning he was born in Ukraine but was issued a certificate here in America. This aspect of the certificate made it unacceptable for the license, enhanced or not, because apparently a three-year-old is at risk of being a terrorist laying down a long-term plan to get an American driver's license 13 years later.
"I'll need more," she said. "Like his social security--"
I handed the card to her before she even finished. The lipstick lady checked her list.
"Actually, this won't do it, either," she said regretfully . "I need his naturalization papers or his adoption--"
I handed it over before she finished again. Going through the original adoption process has made me hyper-organized about government shit, and I had brought with me every form I owned.
The lipstick lady shuffled papers, clicked on her computer, shuffled more papers, and then picked up the Segment II certificate, the one with the wrong birth date on it. Max and I both held our breaths. She looked more closely at it, and we were both sure she was going to object. Then she picked up a staple remover, plucked a staple from the corner, and dropped the form into her scanner without a word. The moment she was done, I whisked it into my handy manila folder.
Whew.
She took Max's picture, handed him a temp license, and told him his permanent license would arrive in two weeks.
All done!
This evening, Max took the car out for a little drive by himself for the first time. He said it was weird, and strangely lonely. :)
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