The Golden Years

My old man's insurance was revoked because he mixed up his medication and ran over a few mailboxes before crashing into a tree. He was only going about ten miles an hour, so he was not harmed. The car and mailboxes on the other hand sustained a considerably amount of damage. We tried a few well known companies, but none of them offered rates he could afford. There was one short term insurance company that had rates low enough for my dad. The only problem was he would have to retake his driver's license test in order to qualify.

We went down to the local DMV and stood in line for about two hours before finally receiving the written portion of the exam. My old man may indeed be old, but his brain still fires like a young Woodrow Wilson. He scored perfect on the test and barely even glanced at it. After waiting another hour it was time for him to take the driving test. I stood outside and watched my dad slowly climb into his car. They asked him to drive through a small obstacle course while avoiding rows of orange road cones. I mentioned earlier that my dad's as sharp as a tack, unfortunately his eyesight has not fared so well. It was not three second before he had crushed a half dozen cones and driven completely off the course. It was not until later that I found out he had learned the eye chart while waiting in line and passed it on memory alone. He though he'd be able to see well enough to fool the instructor, but this turned out to about as far away from the truth as you could get. He tried to haggle with the man giving the test, but the instructor would not listen to any of my father's excuses. My dad even tried to say he was having a mild stroke, except instead of reassuring the instructor, it convinced him my dad was even more dangerous behind the wheel and immediately denied him a license.

We went back to the short term insurance company and explained the situation. That my dad had failed the test do to a bias instructor, but he didn't believe it. My dad was not allowed to replace his insurance and now relies on me or public transportation to get around. My older brother offered to help out, but he really had no intention of doing so. To this day, my dad will still talk about how vindictive and crass the driving instructor was. He keeps talking about writing them a ugly letter and I keep explaining the instructor was actually a pretty nice guy. That my dad had started to believe his own lies about this man. From time to time is still seems truly convinced he deserves retribution.

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