It's Pat!!!

For those of you who don't know, today was a HUGE day for me. An extremely stressful one that even threw my body out of sync because it stressed me out so badly. Today was the LAST day for me to take my G2 exit test and PASS. If I didn't pass, then, since my license expired after the test, I would've been demoted down to the rank of commuter, and would have been rideless for however long it would've taken me to write my G1 test and get my G2 again. What's worse is that this wasn't my first time taking the test. I'd taken it before and FAILED. So my confidence was already on the ropes with this test.

Last night, I couldn't sleep. This morning I couldn't eat. I nearly didn't get out of bed either simply due to the fact that I couldn't get over the fact that I had failed before--I figured that this attempt would be in vain, I'd fail, and I'd find myself back in bed, buried under a mountain of depression caused from the realization that I was indeed a failure. Usually I'm tougher than that. But it was simply the fact that I'd failed last time due to opinionative demerits that caused me not to want to deal with these stingy testing people ever again. If one didn't want me to pass cuz she was having a bad day, why would anyone else?

Alright, so last night I overkilled on the practice driving, the parallel parking, and the checking of the blind spots. This morning, I picked up my faithful accompaniment, Ly (for should I fail, I would need someone else to drive me home since I wouldn't have a LICENSE), and headed to pay my $75 fee for them to fail me. While Ly took a nap in the Ministry (thanks so much for coming, Ly), I waited in the car and secretly hoped that some hot, young, and easily swayed male would step into my car and pass me just on account of my good looks and the cool deck installed in the car. No such luck (though I DO have the looks); up to my car walks this homey looking, middle-aged mom with a nice little border of flowery stickers pasted to her clipboard in order to get my hopes up in thinking that she's a nice lady who'll pass everyone she meets. Pfft, I think to myself.

After checking out my lights, signals, and horn-tooters (hehehe), she climbs into the car and gives me the mandatory speech about what's about to happen, and then asks me to sign by the Xs, asking me if I was okay with all this. I told her I was nervous. The last time I told that to my tester, I swear she almost "muahahaha"-ed me in my face, so imagine my surprise when homey-looking-middle-aged-mom-with-flower-stickers tells me sweetly not to be nervous and to try to focus on my driving so that I wouldn't do anything I normally wouldn't do. Wow.

Turns out that homey-looking-middle-aged-mom-with-flower-stickers is really exactly that: a homey-looking-middle-aged-mom-with-flower-stickers! We didn't exactly have a heart-to-heart discussion during my test, but we chatted a bit, especially when I ill-wished the teenaged-smokers on the sidewalk without their coats on.

    "I hope they freeze out there!"
    "Me too! My son just became one of those..."

Wow. Anyway, I mustered up the courage to ask her opinion about the things I supposedly did wrong last time causing me to fail. Guess what she said? THAT I SHOULDN'T HAVE FAILED!!! Damn other tester on PMS--I swear if I ever find you...argh!!! @_:@

Needless to say, I passed my test, although the clinching factor was when the idiot taking his test ahead of me (who made a right turn from the middle lane) was asked to pull into the second driveway while I got to pull into the first. :D My tester lady told me I did a GREAT job (ya hear that PMS lady?!?!--"GREAT") and asked me if I needed anything else.

    "Thank you! omg, no, I don't think I need anything else, but thank you SO much...um...what's your name?"
    "Oh, my name's Pat,"
    "Thank you SO much Pat!"

Yes, thank you SOOOOO much, Pat. She'll never know what sort of weight she lifted off my shoulders; she not only made my day, week, and month, but possibly a whole separate strain of my future.
...

Though I was so thrilled to have passed, I wasn't so thrilled to know that the Ministry wrongfully claimed 75 dollars more of my money than they should have, and that I now have to pay them 40 MORE dollars just for them to take another hideous mug-shot of me. That's money-mongering if I've ever heard of it...

p.s. Thank you SOOOOOO much, Pat!!!