Seventeen

She is beautiful, inside and out. Responsible, bright, funny, caring, full of life. Our sweet seventeen year old girl/woman.

Today we went to renew her drivers license. We both had a 'feeling' it might not go as planned. here is why:

Eighteen months ago when she reached the age of 15 1/2 and was eligible to get her permit we made our first foray to the DMV office. I had a file folder full of paperwork, forms I had gotten in our Driver's Ed in a Box, forms I downloaded off the DMV website, social security card, birth certificate, heck, I even brought her shot records. Still, we were turned away because we didn't have one special form called The VOE (Verification of Education) Apparently a current report card is not enough to prove you are in school and in our state you have to be in school to get a permit/license. 

We went to the school with the filled out form in hand, only to have the woman tell us we couldn't pick it up until the next day. Ok, so here we are, I had to take a day off of work and she is missing school, and the woman is sitting there with the completed form on her desk next to the official stamp needed to verify the info. All she had to do was pick it up, apply it with gentle force and Ta Da off we could go. But Noooooo, the nasty office wench turned us away empty handed. 

So a couple of weeks later we again head to the DMV, all the paperwork in hand including the now verified VOE.  We get it all right, but then Katie takes the test and FAILS by one question. She has 90 days to retake the test with the current paperwork. We go home, she studies and a couple of weeks later we again take time off of school and work and this time she passes the test. YES!

Here is where things take a nosedive. We get 'Mary', who appears to have been one of the original employees when Texas became a state in the union. She mumbles, gets confused and takes her own sweet time. Somehow, although permits are only paper in our state, she hits a wrong button and the system won't let her go any further without taking Katie's picture. Well, OK, whatever. We finally leave with the official permit in hand and begin the remainder of the driver's ed course which now includes 'behind the wheel' instruction. 

Two weeks later Katie receives a license in the mail. Huh? We take it back to the DMV and they can't figure it out. They say to ignore it, which we do and she continues driving only with an adult, receiving her training and documenting it all. When she turned 16 we returned to the DMV to apply for her license. 

They tell us her permit is invalid, that she already has a license and it is just a renewal. I explain it all, they contact the main office in the state capital, we make 3 more visits to the DMV and are told it is all fixed. She gets her license in the mail. We have a friend who is a local cop check it and he says it is all OK. 

So fast forward to today. We get there, it's packed. We wait our turn, inching towards the front desk. Finally, we get up there and it's all going well until the woman says 'Uh Oh'. I begin to sweat, Katie goes white. The woman explains that the 'license' Katie has is really only a permit/ID and that she has been driving for the past year illegally. Crappola! I tell her the whole story and she demands to see the forms we got when they gave her her license. I have NO IDEA what she is talking about. She keeps insisting we got these forms and shows us what they look like. I have never seen them before in my life. She is getting annoyed, Katie is getting panicked and I am about to cry! The lady then goes to the back and pulls Katie's file, and amazing there are the forms, still in the file. Then she sees all the documented proof that we have been trying to correct this for 18 months. That saved us. She again contacted the main office, go clearance, we filled out a bunch of new forms and legally, Katie got her license today. 

I have decided that DMV stands for Dangerous Morons of Vengeance.

Happy Birthday baby!