Time With My Teen: B-Dawg Gets His License

The life of a Mom has many variables. When her kids become teens, she has to get used to not seeing them as often, and learns to savor the time she does have with them. This week, I had one of those togetherness opportunities. B-Dawg was scheduled to take his driving test. This has been a long time coming, for various reasons. Since Dad works full-time, Mom is the obvious choice to deliver him to the Department of Licensing. I put aside my Wednesday morning commitment so as to deliver B-Dawg up on the Altar of Judgment.

In a small town, government employees are few, so must do multiple jobs. The driving examiner is also the clerk in the office of same. Therefore all conveyers of Test Takers (usually Moms) are subject to the schedule of this person. Four test-takers mean that at least 8 people are inconvenienced for an hour and a half, whether they work or not. All report at 9 a.m. and wait around for their person's turn and then wait around till the Examiner opens the office at 10 a.m. Then there is jostling for a number from the number machine to get the paperwork done, which potentially adds exponential time to the waiting period. It doesn't make much sense, but you don't argue with the Government.

Waiting around to be the third contestant, and then competitors for numbers, we lurked in the vestibule of the office. The mother of the second contestant lurked as well. Our sons are acquainted and so are we. It was pleasant to exchange news of our families, and then see the smiles on the faces of our sons when they got their yellow papers, signifying passing, and hear their strategic maneuvers. Both did well, after having struggled lately to pass the computer written test. Turns out they both passed that after abandoning the computer test and opting for the paper test. Take heed, parents and kids. The computer test is more nerve-wracking as you get scored as you go along, the terror mounting at each wrong answer.

I dropped B-Dawg off at school for an hour, then went to get my glasses fixed, as I have been through three days of wearing my old frames and straining to see things through what I thought at one time were the thickness of the bottoms of Coke bottles. Actually, the ones I have now are the Coke bottles. I then went back to pick up B-Dawg. He has one of those flexible schedules now that he is a senior, which means that he either has to ride his bike to school, skateboard there, go early and come home late on the bus, or beg for rides to and fro.

Since he finally accomplished acquiring his driver's license, I felt a little celebration was in order, so we went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant, after gassing up the car, which was another first for B-Dawg. I had a coupon for a half-price meal, if you order two drinks and order up at least one of the combination meals. This ends up amounting to the price you would have paid for two entrees, anyway, but at least you get to drink pop with your meal instead of water, which as we all know adds about 5000 calories and you just don't tell people about it afterwards if you'lre worried about being politically correct to their beliefs. Fortunately I am not obsessive-compulsive about keeping lists of who believes in God and who is a Democrat. It just doesn't bother me. So I can tell you that he had a root beer and I had Pepsi (but please don't tell the High School Site Council).

B-Dawg and I talked about some future plans. He adores skate- and snow-boarding. He has been doing these for over half his lifetime of 18 years and I learned that one of his goals (though not a career goal) is to skateboard in Japan. For some reason, Japan holds an allure for him. Who knows, maybe it's a past-life memory of a beloved place kind of thing. I think it would be cool if he could do this. I ask him if he could somehow get sponsored to go there, but he says he's not good enough. Since I have been with him to the emergency room numerous times, I'm not going to argue with him. But as my parents always said to me, "Where there's a will, there's a way," so if that's his dream, he ought to be able to make it there somehow. B-Dawg isn't ready for college yet. He needs a year off. Fortunately he has a great restaurant job where he has a second family. He should be able to save some money for a ticket. Whether a car will take priority remains to be seen....

Another of B-Dawg's present goals is to graduate without having to go to the graduation boating party. For parents who buy into this, it would mean an all-year fundraiser, in order to pawn their graduating teens off onto professional party people who will see to it that their wildly celebrating kids will not end up in a ditch or on a curb, smashed up from shooting through the windshield at 100 mph while driving drunk through town. It's just as easy to fall off a party boat, and hey, at almost $100 per kid (plus what the fundraising raised), the liability insurance is covered. But like I say, fortunately for his parents, who have already done this with son #1, B-Dawg would rather do something on a smaller scale and more inclusive, like have a bonfire next to our house and invite his friends over, which he already does anyway from time to time, when it's not raining. Adults bring you popcorn and marshmallows and hot dogs and enjoy knowing where you are and what you're doing, and can spy from behind the curtain in the family room. If he can make it through these last months with passing grades, more power to him, and maybe we'll throw in a barbecue, too.

After our lunch we got in the car to head home. I shouldn't have been surprised when B-Dawg asked, "Mom, can I borrow the car for the afternoon....?"