I'm 25, and I don't have a driver's license. Back in Zimbabwe, you're allowed to get your license when you're 16 - same age you're allowed to get your ID. I'm not sure why I didn't. A lot of my friends did the usual mad-rush-get-your-license thing the instant they turned 16. It was never a biggie for me, I suppose. I did get my learner's at one stage. It was quite a mission. You have to book to be allowed to book the test for the thing. Excessive bureaucracy. Long lines. Hours of waiting. Oral tests that you can't understand due to thick accents. That sort of thing. I did it, though, I got my learner's. And a year and a half later, as they are wont to do, it expired. I don't think I even noticed, really.
Here at Rhodes, you don't need a license, either. For one thing, you can walk everywhere you want to go, and for another, there's a bit of a shortage of cars. Well, no, that's not true, there are cars, but it's a bit off to go borrowing another student's car all the time.
Anyway, it'd be damn stupid of me to leave Rhodes without my license. It's easy to get them here. Not "easy" in the Oudtshoorn sense of "if you can make the car go forwards for ten meters you're through". Easy in the sense that you can pop down to the traffic department in between lectures, and even if the queue is as long as it's going to get in this small town, it's not more than a quarter of an hour wait, as opposed to the waits you'd get in queues garnered from the millions of people who live in Cape Town or Johannesburg. Easy in the sense that it's a small town, and you can learn the route and do it, and there's just not that much bureaucracy to deal with.
I did actually get around to getting my learner's here at Rhodes about three or four years ago. I got it, and started to learn to drive. Ingrid taught me how to drive using her mother's car, and I got pretty good. Then, two or three years later, as they are wont to do, it expired. I did notice, I think, but it didn't have much of an effect on me.
Anyway, I have now obtained my learner's license a third (and final, dammit!) time, and I have been taking lessons with a Real Driving School (tm), and I know how to parrallel park, and I know how to dock, and I know how to do three point turns, and I know how to do that stupid pre-test check, and I know, oh yes, I know how to do those goddamned awful K-53 checks every three seconds as you're driving mirror mirror blind spot intersection mirror blind spot mirror intersection oh my god I just drove straight into the back of the car in front of me because I wasn't bloody looking at the bloody road I was too busy spraining my neck trying to look in the blasted blind spot.
As I was saying, I know how to do the K-53 checks. And frankly, I could probably pass the test now, if I could take it now. Well, not now, I'm pretty tired, and it's dark outside, and I think I'm going to have a glass of wine just now, with an episode of Scrubs, before I get into bed. But, tomorrow, perhaps. Or this morning. No, not this morning, I was rather hungover. The point is, I am ready to do the test.
And, finally, on Monday, Ingrid and I went down to the Traffic Department, and applied, and I have booked a driving test for December the 6th, at 11 in the morning. That's the soonest they could give me. So I just need to remember how to do these stupid checks until then.
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