“I would never get in a car with you, har har,” is a snide comment I have received quite frequently over the past two months. Not to call out members of the Nobles community, which is against our core values, but, guess what, Christian Weller (Class II) and Gabi Burack (Class II): I never offered to give you a ride in my mother’s sick Chrysler minivan, anyway, so joke’s on you. That is because the law says I can’t, and also, your comments irritate me. The reason these two students cannot legally ride with me and hesitate to commend my driving capabilities is that I have failed my road test three times.
The following story is neither fabricated nor exaggerated, but a real account of how I got where I am today: I am currently seated in a yellow school bus with a crisp permit in my pocket and a single tear in my eye.
The first time I attempted my road test was on a grim Saturday afternoon. Several inches of snow coated the ground, concealing curbs and rendering roads slippery. I waited inside my auto school, which was actually a pretty sketchy-looking building. Once my name was called, I got into the car next to an examiner who closely resembled Santa Claus. I was virtually certain I would pass, because I executed each maneuver perfectly and obeyed every single rule of the road. “You didn’t check your blind spot four times, and you didn’t look behind you when you backed up,” Santa said at the end of the test. I could see where this was going: I knew I was not going to pass. The one thing my father, Bill Triant (Billy T), always told me as a kid was to negotiate whenever possible. So, I attempted to salvage my unfortunate situation by looking Santa square in the eye and saying, “I actually did check my blind spots.” He looked unconvinced. “When I parked and backed up,” I added for clarity. Negotiating and gaslighting are two separate tactics, and the latter proved ineffective. Santa was clearly feeling abnormally unjolly and unfestive that day, so he defaced my then-pristine permit with his black pen.
Three weeks later, I returned to that same godforsaken auto school building to take my test for the second time. I had practiced for an hour and felt secure in my haphazard preparation. When I say this test went perfectly, I really do mean it. The reason I failed was actually because of a weather-related issue I could not control. As I was backing up in a straight line, the car drifted slightly onto the grass due to a particularly strong gust of wind that pushed the vehicle off course. “If there were a curb, you would have hit it. That’s an automatic fail,” said the examiner as he poised his pen to mark up my permit. I began to cry as I trudged back into the auto school to inform the lady at the desk of my failure. I noticed a sinister sign propped up on a shelf behind her. It read, “WE CAN’T FIX STUPID.”
At this point, my parents began to lose faith in me. They claimed to have identified a pattern of failure and did not want to invest $200 in each driving test through the auto school, so they sent me to take a $35 test at the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV). I was certain this economical alternative would prove more fruitful than the auto school, as I knew Billy T would be in the back seat serving as my “sponsor,” whom I could use to my advantage via subtle communication during the test.
Two weeks later, I went to the RMV and was told to parallel park into a rectangle created by four tall cones. I began the maneuver and executed it perfectly, due to Billy coughing at the moment I was to turn my wheel to the left to fit into the cones, which we had rehearsed before. Billy is an ethical guy, though he agreed to help me cheat because he believes I am a skilled driver deserving of my license, and I couldn’t agree more. As Lincoln said, “Some things legally right are not morally right.” The reverse is true, as well.
Now, the time had come for me to navigate the mean streets of Watertown, MA, to prove myself to the examiner. Before taking a right onto a small road, I paused to check for oncoming traffic. I observed a single car barreling towards me, perhaps going 50 mph on a 30 mph road. I knew exactly what to do — I had accumulated decades’ worth of driving experience from having my permit for a year. Thus, I let the wind and my Greek heritage guide my foot, and I stomped on the gas pedal and lurched in front of the speeding car in the nick of time.
I winked at the examiner and slowed the car to 40 mph. Pulling off dangerous maneuvers is extraordinarily impressive; Billy even stopped his coughing fit to shout my name. The examiner commended me as well. “You could have killed all three of us!” he said with such excess enthusiasm that I had to tell him to stop his over-the-top flattery in order to preserve his dwindling nonchalance. He translated his praise into a written compliment on my score sheet. “Dangerous maneuver that required verbal intervention from examiner and sponsor,” it said. Shucks.
What I hope Nobleman readers glean from my melancholy tale is twofold. Firstly, you apparently have to EARN your license — actual MERIT is required to succeed, which is stupid, as I believe I am entitled to my license since I have invested 30 long hours in Driver’s Ed (I also believe that licenses should follow a “pay to win” model in which you can buy a license, based on the Catholic indulgence system of the late Middle Ages). Secondly, refrain from telling your friends the date of your road test, as if you fail, you will receive myriad messages from them asking what happened, and reckoning with these messages post-failure is no joke.
Nobles: I am writing this critical update from Starbucks (I drove here myself) to tell you that dreams really do come true. On April 17, I passed my exam on the fourth try, and hereby lay claim to my due parking spot in the senior lot, even though I am only a junior. As I sip my Iced Brown Sugar Oatmilk Shaken Espresso and twirl the keys to Billy T’s old clunky Chrysler minivan on my finger, I reflect on “the heartache and thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,” that Hamlet spoke of, which I endured to get where I am today. As a way of thanking the community for its support, I will set up a table in Gleason Hall during Community Time on May 1, where I will sign copies of this article and take photos with my fans. However, I will be charging $12,310.67 per signed article (this will be chittable), so that after signing only three articles, I will have the $36,932 I need to purchase my dream car: a blue Jeep Wrangler.
