Munchkin’s road to getting a license has been a long one mainly because she really didn’t have an interest in driving. Since she attends college classes every day and there have been a couple of instances where I couldn’t get over to pick her up right away due to some complications with other events, she slowly began to see the importance of being able to drive. With that realization and the expiration of her learner’s permit looming, she really applied herself to getting comfortable with driving.
We have 2 full size trucks – one of which is a lifted, manual transmission truck. She had learned to drive with those. Parking a full size truck is a little different than parking a small vehicle or a vehicle with a shorter wheel base, but she got the hang of it. She and Daddy headed over to take the driver test only to realize that she was unable to park my truck in the space given for the test. It just wasn’t possible to pass the test with my truck. Tears and frustration followed the failure to be able to park in the space.
Even though she was perfectly capable of driving and parking a full size truck in the real world, she was unable to pass the test to get her license with our truck. It was just too big. With that, the search began for a vehicle that she could use to pass the test. We were unable to rent a vehicle because she had to be on the rental agreement which, of course, the rental companies don’t allow as she was too young and didn’t have a license.
We were fortunate that someone had a mini cooper that they offered her to use. The catch? It was a manual transmission. Taking a driver’s test was stressful enough, so we weren’t sure if she could handle the addition of the manual transmission. She drove it for the weekend, but she just didn’t have time to truly get comfortable enough with it that she felt she could use it for the test. (D and I agreed that she would have been good had she been able to drive if for a couple of weeks or so. She actually does pretty well driving a manual transmission.) Needless to say, the mini, sadly, was ruled out.
When another person that D works with heard about the craziness, he offered his wife’s small suv for the test. D picked it up the night before the test, and Munchkin took the test and passed the following afternoon after she finished up with her college classes. Huge sighs of relief all around. I was talking to D on the phone when Munchkin drove in with the person giving her the test. She was smiling, so we knew it had gone well.
She’s still waiting for her real license to come in as she went to a small mvd, and one of the main offices sends out the real license. For now, she has a paper license. For us, it works. It’s a relief for all of us. Now, we just need to get her truck finished. It has a long way to go before it gets done. Funds and time have put it on the back burner more times than we would like to admit, but Daddy and Munchkin are hoping to knock out some work when they’re off for Christmas. We’ll see how it plays out. For now, we’ll just be happy that she has her license. 🙂
