What I did today.

I got my driver's license renewed today. Just saying in case you wanted to know.

When I got to the BMV (Bureau of Motor Vehicles), I read the sign that said "You will need the following to renew your license." It had 3 items all labeled with the number 1. I couldn't figure out if that meant you only needed one of the 3 or if they were all important or what, but I didn't have any of those things. I still got my license.

I was impressed with how clean and uncrowded it was, as well as how polite the staff was. Not like the old days in a neighboring county where they made the staff pass a nasty test before they hired them and the floor had never seen the sunny side of a wet mop.

To get ready for the eye exam, I cleaned my glasses with a glass cloth and cleaner I found in my purse, but it left a blurry film over the lenses. By the way, I can get free re-fills of that cleaner from a large national chain store whenever I want. Which I don't. I tried breathing on the lenses and wiping them off with my cotton blouse. Low tech, but it worked.

Anyway, I sat down to take the vision test and I couldn't tell if the first 4 characters of line 5 were numbers or letters but they all looked the same. I backed up and tried 'er again. At least there was a difference but they could have been Greek letters for all I knew. So I backed up and tried 'er again. I'm still not sure what those 4 things were, but the other characters looked clearer so I mumbled 4 likely letters/numbers and followed up with 8 more distinct answers. It worked.

Then I had to go see the woman who asks personal questions like how much do you weigh, what color is your hair, are you a felon. I lied about my weight, of course, and I didn't say my hair was gray because tomorrow it might be brown or blonde or even red.

The questioner had a slight accent and I had to pay close attention to understand her. Which was good that I did because when she asked if I had any hearing impairment that would prevent me from operating a motor vehicle I was able to understand enough of the sentence that I didn't go, "Eh? Speak up!"

Driving is as much an adventure when you get old as when you're young. Just in a different way.