This is a story about responsibility. It’s a tale of a man and his inability to keep his day-to-day shit straight, and the penalty he had to pay because of it. I’m not proud that I’m an unorganized mess — I’m just dumb enough to admit it publicly.
Do you see that picture up there? That’s the inspection sticker on my car. Funny thing about inspection stickers, you have to occasionally get them updated. From what I am told, it’s something most of you do annually. Not me. I tend to let it slide a bit — most recently, for several months. Here’s another funny thing about inspection stickers: if you get ticketed for having one that’s expired, it’s considered a moving violation. And as I unpleasantly learn today, collecting five of those little law-enforcement love notes over a three-year period will get you in trouble with DMV. That’s right, break out the low-budget safety videos — this unorganized mess is going to state-ordered driving school today.
When attending driving school, participants are asked to bring three items to class: a confirmation letter, a writing utensil, and some form of identification. Guess how many of them I brought? None of them — I actually showed up to driving school without my license. That’s like asking your AA sponsor to meet you for drinks after a meeting. Clearly, I’m off to a good start.
After convincing the teacher to let me stay for the class (that’s right, I actually begged to do this), I find a seat and start to take notice of my fellow bad drivers. I feel like a student in the movie Dangerous Minds — except my instructor isn’t Michelle Pfeiffer and I can’t find Coolio anywhere.
Four of my fellow students are doing time for drag racing, three others for DUI arrests, and, as best as I can tell, the middle-aged, bipolar, blond woman sitting in front of me showed up just to have someone to talk to. After telling us for the third time she was going through an ugly divorce and her life was a total wreck, I actually witness her pull hair out of her head. Did I mention she’s also wearing a powder-blue leather beret? C’mon, sing it with me! We’ve been spending most our lives/living in the Gangstas Paradise!
Now, just in case eight hours sitting in a high-school classroom learning your left from your right isn’t enough of a kick to the nuts, the class is being held in a room with no heat. OK, let’s pull out the ol’ iPhone and see what today’s temperature reading is. It’s six. Not 16, six. The guy sitting next to me has more felony charges.
I manage to make it through the first half of class, and we’re rewarded with a 45-minute lunch. Passing on an invitation to break bread with my classmates at the local McDonald’s, I decide to spend my furlough catching up on e-mail and thawing out in my car.
After lunch, we return to class and dive right into the second half of our re-education process. As I try to wrap my brain around the challenging subject of “right-of-way,” I notice what I’m fairly certain is a gay-male Russian prostitute sitting behind me. I notice him not because he’s wearing metallic jeans that are two sizes too small and tucked into a pair of women’s Uggs, but because apparently whatever he ate for lunch is no longer agreeing with him. Yup, Russian-prostitute farts every 30 minutes. Served up like borscht — cold and smelly.
Our day of restitution comes to an end, but not before we are tested on all that we have learned. I navigate the beginning part of the test, a simple maze of true or false, and quickly move on to the final question, a soul-searching essay question: “What have you learned today that will make you both a better driver and a better person?” Let’s see, I learned that powder-blue leather goes well with a pink housecoat. I learned that late Friday night, I can get some mad drifting action at a parking lot deep in Chelsea. And I learned that not having your shit together, in any form, can really screw with a perfectly good Saturday. Mission accomplished.
