LICENCE OF 2004

Renewing my driver’s licence is something I put off for a while. Five years to be exact. While in Cape Town it wasn’t much of an issue, here in Jo’burg, they seem to take valid licences quite seriously. You may remember my bribing incident of April ’09 aptly entitled ‘I’m an Idiot’

After chatting to a few people explaining that my licence expired sometime in early 2004, they convinced me that I would have to retake the drivers test. After the first person told me, my response was ‘Shutup your face’, after the tenth, I got in my car and practised my three point turn, my parallel parking and my alley docking. While my alley docking was off the charts, my parallel parking resembled a drunk two-year-old who was using the head rest as a steering wheel.

I arrived at the licensing department at 7:30am this morning and went through the turmoil that is a government building. With no one to ask where the hell I was supposed to be or what form to fill in, I filled in a learners licence form, a drivers licence form and a form for police clearance which I thought would come in handy for something in the future.

Handing all three forms to some mindless wonder I was shuffled into another room I was told to ‘Sit!’ and ‘Wait here!’ which was in keeping with the signs in the place: ‘INFORMATION!’, ‘FORMS!’, ‘CASHIER!!!’ Why cashier deserved three exclamations marks is beyond me. Maybe they were really happy to have one.

I found myself sitting next to a woman who may have eaten all the previous cashiers and was now looking at me as if I would make a great post-cashier snack. I removed her thigh from my lap and got up after I was called by a man who looked like he would rather be burning in hell than doing his present job.

Misery: You here for will?

Not remembering filling out a form for a will, I replied

Me: No.
Misery: Well why are you here then?
Me: I thought I could get my drivers licence renewed?
Misery: That’s a wal.

Awwwww, so what I heard as ‘will’, was in fact ‘wal’ which is traffic licence speak for drivers licence rene'wal'. It’s important you know this because he looked pretty pissed off that wasted three seconds of his time with my will query.

When he requested my old licence, my mind worked overtime. I could pretend I’ve been overseas since 2004 but I had no proof of this and my mother is an intensely bad liar. I could pretend I had lost my licence and convince them that my lost licence was in fact completely up to date, but fear of the ‘system’ stopped that idea. I could hand over the prehistoric licence, expiration date 2004, and get what I deserved. Handing it over to Misery with my thumb surreptitiously covering the date, it was snatched from my quivering hand.

While Misery glanced at it and I was mentally practising my hill starts, he threw it back to me and I was instructed to sign ‘here’ and ‘here’.

R215 and twenty minutes later I was the proud owner of a temporary licence and six weeks away from getting my licence card. So to all those, who like me, have put off getting their licence renewed because of fear of penalty fees or retaking of drivers test, fear not. They couldn’t care less. And if I don’t get stopped at a road block quite soon to proudly show off my temporary licence, I’m going to commit some traffic misdemeanour. I’m that proud.