Season 3: The Empire of Friends Blog 18: Play Another Song

 Play Another Song

About a year ago, I mentioned that my goal was to get my driver's license. Shortly after introducing you to this goal, I made my first step towards achieving it by getting my temps. I mostly practiced driving by going to and from work, and because my parents were so busy with their art studio, we didn't practice much more than that. When Covid-19 hit, I still didn't do a lot of driving because there wasn't anywhere I needed to go during the lockdown.

When the lockdown ended, my parents became busy with the studio again. In July, I knew I had to make practicing for the drivers test my priority because my temps would expire on 11/15/2020. Because of Mom and Dad's busy schedule, I asked my grandpa, who we call Papa, if he could take me to practice. My first few times in the car with Papa, we only drove around Clintonville, the community where I live. We only started working on maneuverability at the beginning of September.

At the same time, I had a meeting with my counselor. I told her that I hadn't scheduled my driving test because I still had two months before my temps expired. I was also just about to start practicing maneuverability. She told me that I should probably schedule it sooner rather than later because the BMV has been busy due to the lockdown. I scheduled my test for 10/21/2020, and Papa and I spent all of our time practicing maneuverability.

The Ohio maneuverability test is set up as follows: Two cones are placed parallel to each other nine feet apart. Two more cones are put in the same position, 20 feet behind the first two. A fifth cone is centered another 20 feet away from the second two. To pass the test's maneuverability portion, a driver has to pull up to the first two cones and line up front bumper the car with them. The driver must then look both ways and drive between all four cones without hitting any of the cones. Depending on the instructor's direction, the driver must turn right or left at the fifth cone, straighten the car up and stop with the back bumper lined up with the cone. After that, all the driver has to do is reverse back through the cones, again without hitting them.

Pulling through the cones wasn't as much of a problem for me as reversing through them was! My first time practicing, it took me about an hour and 50 minutes out of two hours to get a streak of successful times going. My second time practicing, everything was going perfectly until about 20 minutes in, I hit a cone and started doubting myself. As my mental state deteriorated over the next hour and 40 minutes, I gradually hit more cones.  

The third practice went very similarly to the second except toward the end of the two hours when my doubt was at its peak; Papa told me to turn the car off come over to him. He asked me what was wrong, and I talked him through everything that was going on.

Papa sat, I thought for a second and then said, "You know what you should do! You should imagine the cones as people!"

"Yeah, cuz that’s gonna help with the stress!" I replied sarcastically.

"I'm serious!" He replied. "Think about it, what do you do when you have a song stuck in your head?"

"You play another song," I answered.

"Exactly!" Papa exclaimed. "Right now you're overthinking, but if you focus on making the cones people it would distract you you'll be overthinking more about that than the fact that this is practice for a test!"

I got back in the car and imagined cones one and two as August and Arden, cones three and four as Aspen and Kid, and cone five as Marshall. When we practiced for a fourth time a few days later, I only "killed" Aspen once over the entire two hours! Quite honestly, over the remaining practices, Aspen was the hardest to keep "alive," but I eventually managed it.

In my original plan for this installment, this last paragraph was going to be about the test itself. Honestly, however, there's not enough content for me to write regarding it. The only thing you need to know is something you probably already figured out —I passed!!! I'm so excited to finally have my license and I can't wait to see the new possibilities that this opens up!

Have a Greattastic Day, and Be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri