Congratulations! You Are Now Significantly Less Lame than You Were Yesterday

My Dear Reader,

On the 5th of March, in the year of our Lord two-thousand and nine, Miss Cecily Jane Harris, at the tender age of twenty-three, received a driver's license.

I know.

And just in case you're wondering, I've never had my license revoked or suspended or anything; I just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Yes, I used to be that lame. I'm the second oldest out of the six kids in my family, but I was the second to last to drive legally, beating out Youngest, who is twelve years old. That means that for the past few months I've been living in Oregon, I've had to ask my seventeen-year-old brothers to drive me around. Sure, it was slightly embarrassing, but they were driving me in my Madre's van, which tends to have that effect despite the circumstances.

The hard thing about this whole process is that the longer it took me to go into the DMV office, the more reasons I had to not go in at all. I mean, it's not like I could just put my hair in a pony tail and try to pull off being sixteen. Two weeks ago, I finally mustered up the courage to go in and take my first driving test, and the only way it could have been a bigger disaster was if someone had been injured. In fact, I was so upset about it, that I wrote my drive tester, who I will refer to as DMV Lady, into the story I posted last week, and it was pretty much like that minus the crash. She was already in a bad mood, and she got even more upset when HermanaMayor's small car didn't fit her rather large body very easily. It just went downhill from thee, because the more upset she got, the more nervous I became, and the more nervous I became, I would make mistakes and make her even more upset. Like I said, it was awful.

After a reasonable recovery period, I went back for more, praying that I wouldn't get DMV Lady again, and when I saw her behind the counter, I admit that I started freaking out a little. But this time i was with a friend who brought his lucky pants and joked with the other DMV lady who checked me in. Well, it turned out that The Other DMV Lady was my drive tester that time, probably because DMV Lady saw me and refused to ever be in the car with me ever again. It's kind of nice to know that we share a mutual affection, that DMV Lady and I. Anyway, it turns out that I can drive pretty well when the person in the passenger's seat doesn't think that I'm trying to murder them, and The Other DMV Lady was pleased to inform me that I had passed. She had no way of knowing that passing that test meant overcoming on of the greatest hurdles in my life.

I'm sure that you have at least some idea the kind of stuff I've had to put up with from family and friends in the last seven years, especially since I have three little brothers who relish any chance they have to one-up me--but no more! There is no longer an asterisk next to my name in the Book of Awesomeness, which petty much means that I can move up from spot number twelve to spot number nine, at least. That's right; I am now even more awesome than Barbra Streisand. That's quite an accomplishment, at twenty-three.

Don't tell Miss Streisand, though. She gets it hard enough as it is.

Regards, best wishes, and awesomeness,

-Cecily Jane