at the Airport near Hayward.
The Drivers Test
“So, have you got everything arranged for our mini holiday?” Beth said, as she packed her bag.
“Yep, for a change I did some planning.” I said. “The tickets are all paid for, and I even phoned all around and got the best car rental deal in San Francisco. This guy from Thrifty is giving us a Buick Skylark for $150 a week and they will pick us up at the airport.” I replied, very proud of myself.
“That sounds almost too good to be true.” Beth said.
"Well I had to phone about ten companies, but it was worth it," I said.
The idea was we would fly to San Francisco using my Frequent Flyers points, rent a car, and drive leisurely south along the Pacific Highway toward Los Angeles. We had seven days for our little adventure so we weren't sure if we would get to Los Angeles but we really didn't care how far we got as long as we had a nice restful holiday.
We arrived in San Francisco and just as they promised, the little "Thrifty" bus came along in a few minutes; we jumped on and after a short drive arrived at the rental lot.
"Can I help you Sir?" said the very attractive black lady behind the desk with a nameplate saying Gale H.
"You certainly may Gale H., “I said,” I'm Larry Bennett, and this is my wife Beth, we are from Vancouver B.C. and we have a reservation for a Buick Skylark."
“Just a minute Mr. Bennett while I bring up your information on my screen.” The reservation lady said," Ok here it is, right, we have you booked for a Plymouth Neon at a weekly rate of $150. Wow that's quite a rate; do you know someone in the company?"
“No, I guess I'm just a great negotiator." I said proudly." And by the way we had a Buick Skylark reserved, not a crummy Plymouth Neon."
“I’m afraid you must be mistaken Mr. Bennett." She said, smiling sweetly. "We only handle Chrysler cars, never rent General Motors vehicles."
"I know I'm not mistaken, but hey no big deal, what have you got relatively equivalent?" I said.
"We don't have anything in the mid price range at all, but how about if I give you that Chrysler New Yorker over there for the same price?" The reservation lady said, pointing to a gleaming black beauty. “Well it’s not a Buick, but I guess it will have to do.” I said trying to be Joe Cool, and refraining from jumping up and clicking my heals.
So far this holiday was going even better than expected.
“OK now all I need is your drivers license Mr. Bennett and we will have you on the road in no time.”
“Fine here it is.” I said.
“Are you sure the old man on this license is a picture of you.” The car lady said with a smile.
“Well I hate to admit it but it is me, the license photographers in British Columbia leave a bit to be desired. You think I look much younger do you.” I said looking for a compliment.
“OH yes indeed.” She said with a wink at my wife.
“ OH OH, guess what Mr. Bennett?”
“What?”
“Your driver’s license has expired.”
“Naw, that impossible, I’m sure I just renewed it within the last year or so.”
“Well have a look, it has been expired for 2 years, and you have been driving illegally for the past 2 years.”
“Let me see that license.”
“Well I’ll be darned, your right, I don’t know how that happened I must have forgot to put the new one in my wallet.”
“Boy that wasn’t too bright, I thought you said you had this holiday all planned.” Said my loving wife.
“Well anyway my wife has her driver’s license.” I said.
“I’m not driving in this mad house.”
“Shhh you don’t have to drive just sign the stupid paper and I’ll do all the driving.” I said in a whisper.
“I heard that.” Car lady said with a laugh.
“Well, I’ll just have to get a California license, is there a drivers license place near here?”
“As a matter of fact there is one quite close, just about 3miles south in San Mateo.”
With that she drew me a map showing where we turned off the freeway to the Motor Vehicles Office.
As she handed me the map she said, “Now remember, you have no insurance if you drive and the fine for driving without a license is in the thousands.”
I picked up the keys, the contract, and the maps and we headed out to the gleaming New Yorker. As we walked across to the car in the fresh air and beautiful sunshine, I was feeling elated and looking forward to the little adventure the next few hours promised.
“I ‘m definitely not driving, and I don’t think you should without a license either.” Beth said.
“Oh don’t be ridiculous, it’s no big deal, the chances of us getting into an accident or stopped by the Cops is just about nil.”
“With our luck you will probably spend our whole holiday in jail, and I’ll just leave you here and go home.”
“Right.” I said. “Now just get in the drivers side and get us out of the lot and I’ll take over.”
“I’m not driving one inch.”
I got in the driver’s side, and started the car. We had to drive up to the car lady, stop a few feet from her window and wait for her to lift the barricade to let us out.
“Boy is this ever stupid, there is now way she is going to let us out of here with you driving.” Beth said laughing so hard tears were starting down her face.
I stopped the car at the open window, Gale H. came over, looked me straight in the eye without the slightest smile, gave me just the hint of a wink, opened the barricade and we were off on our adventure.
As we left the car lot I realized we were heading north instead of south, so I got into the left hand turn lane and when the light changed did a “U” turn and headed south.
“I don’t think that was too bright.” Beth said.
“I don’t see why not, the little bus driver did the same thing to get us in here.”
“Right, but he just might have a driver’s license.”
“Oh.”
“And he also could know the rules of the road.”
“OK, OK, I get your point.”
“I guess we should get into the right hand lane, we turn right at the first Standard Station according to the little map the girl gave us.” Beth said.
I eventually got over to the right lane.
“There it is turn right at that corner.”
I did.
“There, over there, see the sign “California Motor Vehicle Office?” Beth said.
I pulled into the parking lot, which seemed to be almost full, and then I noticed what appeared to be hundreds of people sort of milling around in front of the building.
“Looks like they are having a fire drill or something.” I said.
“No I think all those people are waiting to get into the building to get their licenses.” Beth said.
“I doubt that very much, after all it is 11AM on a weekday.”
After we got parked about half a mile from the building I left Beth with the car and went up to the last person in the line.
“Excuse me sir, but could you tell me where I could apply for a driver’s license?”
“You have arrived at the right place.” He said.
I had a look at the size of the line outside the building; it was probably larger on the inside. It looked like I would spend a very large part of my mini vacation standing in line. That would never do. I went up to the door but no one would let me squeeze in, so I went around the side and entered the door that said “Employees Only”. No one inside paid any attention to me. I went and stood outside the door that said Manager and waved my arms around at the gentleman inside. This fellow did a very good job of ignoring me for about six or seven minutes. Finally when he couldn’t stand it any longer he came out in rather a huff.
“Just what the hell are you doing standing outside my office waving your hands around like a lunatic?” He hissed loudly to me. “And would you mind getting over to the other side of the counter.”
“I’m sorry to bother you sir, but I’m from Canada and I have a rather strange problem, and I figured you could help me.” I said as I slid over the top of the counter to the Customer side.
“OK that’s much better, you on that side and me on this side.” The manager said just a little sarcastically. “Now just what is this huge problem?”
‘I feel like a real idiot but you see I was renting a car and just found out that my Canadian drivers license has expired. The girl at the rental agency said I could get a temporary California one here.”
“Actually this is not all the rare, we are getting diplomats in here all the time with the same problem. You must write the State exam and we will give you a one year license, provided you have your expired one from Canada.”
I showed him my expired license.
“My, my, that really is an expired license isnt it, did you know you have been driving around Canada for two years without a license?”
“I do now.”
“So when do you want to write the Test?” Said the Manager.
“Right now.”
“OK, just a minute, where are those test forms? I don’t do this very much you know. Right, here they are.” He said as he handed me the test paper.
“See that room behind you there.” He pointed. “See all the people writing their exams, just take the test in there and when you are finished bring it directly back to me.”
“Yes I see. Now I do think of myself as a bit of a mental giant, but do you by any chance have a little booklet or something I could glance at before I write the exam?”
“Well yes we do, if fact you are supposed to have studded it for two weeks before we allow you to write, but I’m making an exception for you.”
“Do you think I could take a little peek at it for a few minutes.”
The Manager reached behind the counter and gave me the booklet. It wasn’t very big maybe thirty pages or so.
“Take all the time you want, but stay here at the counter with the booklet, give me a call when you are ready.” Said the manager and went back into his office.
I took a glance in at the people writing their exams, they all looked very worried and stressed. I quickly went through the booklet, trying to pick out what I thought would be important to remember for the test. After about ten minutes I figured I was ready.
I waved my hands at the manager for a while, and he finally came out.
“What now?” He said, I thought just a tad unkindly.
“I’m finished, want to right the exam quick before I forget everything.”
He took me, and the exam, into the room, said a few words to the lady that was monitoring, waved at me and left.
I sat down and opened the exam; it was all multiple choice. Should be a cinch. After about fifteen minutes I was finished. I looked around at my fellow writees they were all still grimacing and erasing etc. and no one had left. I figured I must have missed part of the exam, but try as a might I just couldn’t find any more. I put up my hand.
“Yes.”
“I’m finished.”
“Are you sure, you have two hours you know, do you want to check it again?”
“No thanks I have checked it twice now.” I said still wondering if I had missed something.
“OK then, you can take it back to Mr. Gomez.” She said.
I went back and stood in front of the Managers office. He didn’t seem to notice me, so I started waving my arms around again and jumping up and down. He studiously ignored me, that is, until I started to crawl across the counter.
“OK, OK, I see you, get down off that counter, and please stop that stupid arm waving routine.” He said as he burst through his office door.
He took my answer sheet and quickly compared it with his. After a few minutes he was finished.
“ Right Mr. Bennett, you passed with 80%. I will go over the ones you got wrong.”
“OK”
He quickly showed me my errors and supplied me with the proper answers.
”Now, number 13 – the answer is ‘B’, you gave ‘D’.”
I really had not been paying all that much attention to his discourse since I had passed and wanted to carry on with our holiday. But I was being polite and listening to a degree.
“Well if the answer is ‘B’ then your little book is wrong – it definitely said ‘D’.”
“No, No, ‘B’ is right.” He said.
“OK hand the little book back and I will show you.”
“Never you mind the little book, just stay right here and I will personally go get you your license.” He said with just a teeny weenie bit of annoyance in his voice.
“That’s OK by me.”
So he did get me my license, he then escorted me to the FRONT door and waved me out with just the slightest hint of a smile.
So we left the Motor Vehicle office and joined the traffic on the highway not going anywhere in particular. We were very happy just to be going anywhere legally. Before long we came to a sign that said ‘San Mateo Bridge’.
“I wonder where that goes. ”Said Beth.
As she spoke I quickly cut off a couple of cars and got into the left turn lane.
“ I don’t know but we’re in the proper lane, let’s go see.”
We went across the bay and turned into the small town of Hayward at the east end of the bridge. We found a nice motel almost immediately right next to the Hayward airport, which I had noticed as we were on the bridge. We moved our stuff in.
“Its still early, lets go for a little drive.” I said.
“Sounds good to me, maybe we can find a nice place to eat while we are out.” Eating was never far from Beth’s mind.
So we left our motel and went straight up what appeared to be Main Street – it was aptly called ‘A’ street. “A’ street soon became Crow Canyon Road and we soon left the town and were into lovely rolling hills. We traveled along for several miles to San Ramon road and started back.
“I’m all for stopping at the first restaurant we come across, I’m starved.” Beth said.
“Ok, sounds like a good plan to me.”
After about another twenty minutes we hadn’t seen anything resembling a restaurant.
“I guess we will just have to wait until we get to Hayward to eat.” I said
“ Look over there, isn’t that a golf course, they always have nice restaurants, turn in and lets see.”
So we turn into the parking lot. Considering it was almost dark we were surprised at the number of cars in the lot. We went in and approached the girl at the register.
“Hi there we are starving, is your restaurant open?”
“Well yes Madam, it is, but I’m afraid we are all booked up with a wedding party. We only have one table left over, and that couple over there have taken it.”
I looked where she was pointing, the table would hold at least ten people, and they were sitting at one end.
“How about putting us at the other end of the table.”
“I don’t know, I’’ ask the couple what they think.
She came back in a minute and advised us that the couple would not mind at all if we shared their table. We got seated and the couple at the other end smiled at us we smiled back and thanked them.
The meal was very good, and although we were not actually talking to the other couple we had to make a bit of an effort not to hear some of what they were saying. I hadn’t actually registered anything they said until just before we were leaving when I heard the gentleman with a bit of agitation in his voice say quite loudly.
“I know dear but this was the third time I’ve taken this stupid test, and I’m telling you the answer was wrong.”
“Come, come dear, whey don’t you just admit it, you were wrong.”
“I was not wrong, dam it.” He said, his voice rising just a tad.
Well I just could not stand it any longer.
“Excuse me, I could not help but overhear you just now. It wouldn’t be the drivers test over at San Mateo you were just talking about would it.”
“ Why yes, that is the one, how did you know?”
“ Well you may not believe it, but I just wrote the test a few hours ago. Was it number thirteen you were talking about?”
“Yes, yes that was it – the one about the flashing lights and the train tracks.” He said.
“That’s the one, I had an argument with the guy – the right answer was ‘D’, he insisted it was ‘B’. So if it makes you feel any better you were right and he was wrong.”
“See dear, I told you I was right. What are the odds of sitting next to a perfect stranger who just wrote the same stupid test I did, and gets the same answer?
Amazing!”
He didn’t know the half of it.
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