As I pulled into the parking lot, the thought of messing up and losing my chance at driving had broken a sweat over my forehead.  All my hard work and constant practice had led up to this day, the day that I would become a driver.  The day that I get my driver’s license.

It was the second week of October, 2015.  School had just finished, and I was heading with my father to the most boring place on earth, the DMV.  My mind was racing, trying to remember all that I had learned in driving school with Mr. Meyer. U-turns, Y-turns, park on the side of the road, and worst of all, parallel parking.

If it weren’t for parallel parking, I would have been going into the DMV with not a care in the world.  I would literally walk in there, say that I’m ready for the test, and be on my merry way.  Instead I walked in there, nervous and scared like I had just committed a crime.  My father and I sat down in the second row of chairs and waited for the instructor to call my name.

While waiting for the test, all the memories of me driving were swirling in my mind, from when I first started driving down my grandmother’s long open road, to the near incident when during a driving test with Mr. Meyer, some idiot passed us on a no passing zone. There were memories of going around the local roads with my father and of me refusing his advice of going 35 on a 25 MPH road.

“Jacob Mahoney?” someone called, and at that moment, I knew that it was time to take this test. I said goodbye to my dad after the instructor told him that the test would only take fifteen to thirty minutes. I showed him to my car, which he complemented on how clean it looked at the time, and asked me to activate my car.  I turned it on, and then he told me to turn on my blinkers starting with left then right.  While following his directions, I figured out that he was making sure that all of my car’s functions were working properly.  Finally, he wanted me to turn on the high beams.  I flicked them on, but they didn’t turn on. The instructor repeated, “Turn on the high beams.”

“I am”, I informed, flicking the lever multiple times trying to turn on the high beams. He walked over to me to see what I was doing.

“There’s your problem,” he answered.  “Your car is one of those that have a day-night cycle on it. To turn it on in the day, you just have to flick that tiny switch on the lever.” I flicked it and then tried to turn on the high beams, “There it goes”, the instructor declared as I switched the high beams on and off.

He entered my car and fastened his seatbelt. My heart started to race as I knew I had already screwed up. He gave me a small speech where he basically told me to just follow his instructions and to act as if he wasn’t in the car with me. Even after his speech, I felt like every move I made was being watched as if I were a dehydrated man in the dessert being stocked by a vulture.

After getting settled in, he gave me my first task, “Drive out of the parking lot and take a left”. I responded with a nervous ok and slowly made my way out of the parking lot. As I crept to the first stoplight, my instructor told me, “Now, at this stoplight, you will want to take a right”. I replied with an ok as we stopped at the stop sign. When it was my turn to go, an insane person driving a Jeep had turned instead and was inches away from hitting my car, as if this day wasn’t stressful enough. My instructor looked even more frightened than me as his eyes were widened with fear.

I shook off the shock of nearly being in an accident and continued on the drive.  My instructor commented on how professional I had taken that incident.  I replied with a thank you and continued on with the test.

While cautiously driving down the road, he wanted me to take a left down Baker Street. This was an easy task as the road would lead straight to where I live.

I replied with a more relaxed ok than usual.  My body was slowly becoming more relaxed and my thoughts were slowing down.  I stopped before the cross walk, made my turn, and off I went.  Unfortunately, I had forgotten to use my turning signal.  The instructor didn’t say anything about it though, so I thought I was off the hook.
My instructor would then tell me to take a left at the next road.  I had never been down this road before, so I was a little uneasy about this idea.  Nonetheless, I turned down the road, remembering to use my turn signal.  I noticed that there were no cars in sight on the road.  He later instructed me to make a Y-turn on this road.  It took me a second to remember what my old driving teacher, Mr. Meyer, told me to do when preforming a Y-turn.  I first positioned my car so it would nearly touch the curb, then, I would crank the wheel to the left as if I were making a sharp turn.  I tried to get as close as I could to the other side of the street before stopping, cranking the wheel in the other direction, reversed, and drove back to the intersection.  He wanted me to go back and take a right.
I was hoping that this would be it and I was about to be done with this stress inducing adventure, but before I knew it, the instructor wanted me to parallel park between the two cars up ahead.  I was terrified.  During driving school, I had only been able to correctly parallel park twice.  The others involved me hitting the curb or me “not getting it straight enough,” as my father would say.  I took a deep breath, turned on my blinker, and moved toward the front car.      I moved my car close to the front car’s steering wheel, put my car in reverse, and slowly backed in-between the two cars.  I tried to stay calm and not hit the curb as I was afraid it would cause an automatic fail.  Lady Luck was on my side as I had perfectly parallel parked without hitting the curb, even the instructor was surprised I did it so smoothly.

He then told me to drive back to the DMV, and that he would evaluate the test and see if I passed.  I happily drove back to the DMV knowing that I had done it.  I knew I had just passed my driving test on the first try.  Sadly, my cockiness got the best of me as I forgot to use my turn signal on the last stoplight.

“What have I done!” I thought to myself, “I probably just jeopardized my chances of getting my driver’s license!”
As I drove into the DMV parking lot, I thought I was done for.  All that perfect driving being ruined because of a forgotten turning signal.  I felt sick to my stomach.  I was greeted by my dad at the front door as my instructor and I walked back inside. “I screwed up,” I complained to my father, “I can’t believe what I did”.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“It was going so well up until I forgot my turning signal at the last stoplight.”

“Don’t worry about it” he reassured, “A minor screw up won’t ruin your chances at getting a license”.

“Thanks dad”, I happily concluded.

It took around 30 minutes had passed until I heard my name being called.  As I approached the desk, I knew that this would be the big day.  The day that I would either go home happy or leave disappointed knowing I have to do all that work over again.  I was about to faint from relief when I heard those two words that would change my life forever, “you passed”.