A 12-Foot Mistake

I used to have a cocky attitude towards exams. I think it’s because I was lucky and never really had to study very hard to get a decent grade in school. But overtime I have come to realize that my luck actually screwed me over big time. It meant I failed to develop a habit of sitting in one place for hours and studying with vigorous intensity (I am always jealous of people who can do that). So, when school actually got hard and I could no longer escape with minimum effort, I tried to get some focus and build good study habits. But of course, I became miserable and felt like I wasn’t cut for it, so I accepted that my talents lie elsewhere.

I am yet to find out where those talents of mine are hiding, but meanwhile as a consolation prize I found that I love consuming and telling stories. So, I remember there was a brief period where I was looking for a story in everything I read, and if there wasn’t one, I used to spin up some bullshit story. Especially during my undergrad when me and my friends had to cram some dense concepts the night before the exams, I used to consider it as my cue to perform some story-telling and oh man, it used to be some performance. I am not sure how much of it actually helped us remember the answers in the exam, but we all were surely entertained. One example I remember is explaining some English Grammer stuff to my friend with an explicit content filled story (I forgot to mention that I was also a huge jackass back then), and my friend claimed to me that I was the best teacher he ever had. That’s the moment when I gave a serious thought about a teaching career. But maybe it’s a good thing I am not a teacher now, we don’t want students to confuse English with Biology classes.

One thing I was always bad at was practical exams. I remember one physics practical when I had trouble tying a thread for a simple pendulum experiment, and I rightly got shouted at (I am not going to ever admit that the origin for crying sounds people heard in the rest room that day was me). I also once got called out during my civil engineering surveying practical exam for struggling to properly use a measuring tape. As you can imagine, I was not someone who touched the grass a lot growing up, so I struggled with doing basic things that other people could do in their sleep. Driving is one such example (well, some people do fall asleep while driving). I initiated the process of getting a driver’s license two times when I was in India and one time here in United States. But guess who’s 28 and takes uber everywhere because he can’t drive?

This week I initiated the driver’s license process again, and first hurdle I had to cross was a learner’s permit exam, and as we have already established, I don’t take such theoretical exams seriously. I saw Texas DMV handbook, which was a 90+ page document, and I decided I would rather flunk this test than study this entire document cover-to-cover. So, I arrogantly took a practice exam I found online, and from trial and error I learned that allowable Blood Alcohol Content in Texas for drivers was 0.08%. I took another practice test which had the similar question about Blood Alcohol Content, and I was like “easy peasy, 0.08%”, but I was wrong. I failed to take in the entire context for this question, because it was asked for ‘drivers under the age of 21’, and correct answer was zero because legal drinking age here is 21. I also was trying to show off the new knowledge in front of my coworkers, so I told them that in Texas you need to maintain a distance of 12 feet from curb while parallel parking, 12 FEET. They laughed and were like “are you parking on the other side of the road?” Correct answer was 12 INCHES. So, I knew I will be humbled today when I went to DMV to give the test. But still, this didn’t stress me out as much as it should have.

I went to DMV, gave the staff there my documents and ID proofs, and asked them to not waste the time anymore, and let me get humbled by taking that computer test. But the officer stared at me in disbelief, and told me that I should have showed up earlier if I wanted to give the test today (I showed up right at the closing time, and the concept that taking test will actually take time that I should show up at least an hour before somehow never crossed my beautiful weird brain). I was internally a bit relieved because I didn’t have to take that exam, but I still pretended like I was disappointed, and turns out I am a good actor because this officer took the bait. She issued me the permit without the exam.

The twist here is that I had a learner’s permit in Oklahoma from years ago that I indicated on the application, which I thought was a useless piece of information, but it is more useful than me during practical exams. I walked out of there feeling like a clever con artist, because I got a permit without having to take the knowledge test. But now as I am writing this, I am realizing that I was the one who actually got played, because now this means I actually have to take the driver’s test, a practical exam for fuck sakes. I always told people “I will get driver’s license” in the sense of “one day I will grow up and become an astronaut”, but now you are telling me I am somehow stuck in the space and got to learn how to steer a spacecraft?