On the DMV

"Is this your wife?"

The lady is pointing at my 16 year old Sister-in-law, who looks exactly as young as she is, and thus makes the very obvious age gap between the two of us more than a little too wide for comfort. Jaidyn is going very red.

"This is my sister in law, she just drove me here" I explain. This isn't 'To Catch a Predator'.

"Oh, I just thought, when you said you were together" the lady continues, oblivious to the embarrassment she's causing Jaidyn. I'm forced to cut her off to clarify, "No, we just came here together. We came here together in a car."

We're at the DMV, to register me for an American licence and for me to sit my theory test. The DMV, I'm realising, is where bureaucracy goes to die. You go in to speak to the greeter, who assigns you a ticket to talk to someone else, who gives you a form to take to a third. I'm pleased that I can do my bit for the stuttering US economy by providing employment for the population of a small town, but maybe one of them could do a little more towards the process, rather than pass responsibility on to the next in line.

Applying for anything in the US as a British citizen is a chore; routinely carrying a packet of documents containing my passport, my birth certificate and my VISA entry form, which are pored over, analysed and remarked upon at every stage. Today I've also brought my counterpart driving licence with me. This will turn out to be a mistake.

The lady taking my documents has never seen a counterpart driving licence before. The lady she is working with hasn't either. Nobody in the building has seen it before. My counterpart licence is the Turin Shroud of the DMV; people like it, but to quote In Bloom, they 'know not what it means'.

I only want to get on a computer so that I can sit the theory part of the test, 40 multiple choice questions about driving laws in Minnesota. There are some excellent bits of knowledge on there. One of the actions it suggests could increase road rage in others is forcing their car off the road. Presumably that's not the only reason to not force people off the road; just the most important one.

I've been studying for the last few days and am pretty confident. Jaidyn uses the drive over to test me. We get lost, leaving us plenty of time of study. Her main advice is to remember that Minnesota state law means I have to leave six feet of space when I pass a cyclist. Six feet, I mentally file that one away.

After nearly twenty minutes of investigation, I'm told that I can't get a licence today and will have to take the permit test. That's what I'm here for. I'm relieved to find that the licence I voluntarily provided to them won't disqualify me from starting the whole process.

The test begins with a routine example question asking me to identify the capital of Minnesota. I get it wrong. An inauspicious start.

The remainder of the test is routine. I have to get 90% of the answers right. Most are obvious, a few require actual thought to answer. One is a straight up true or false. Some have the fourth answer as 'All of the above'. In any situation where all of the above is an option, answer all of the above. It's always the correct answer. This is one of the ironclad rules of testing, along with 'read the question carefully' and 'if you don't know just guess'.

I read the questions carefully, I don't know but guess (correctly as it turns out), and finally I reach a question about the distance to keep from a cyclist. I know this one. Jaidyn's advice is going to pay off. I confidently enter the answer. Six feet of space. Wrong. It's wrong.

I mind-swear profusely.

Disbelief. Crushing, wincing disbelief. Jaidyn has lied to me. I am overcome with doubt. Can I complete this? Are all the answers she gave false? How do I even know what's ... oh, wait, never mind, the test is over. I've passed.

I reenter the casual flow of senseless paper moving. The nice lady who was so confused about my UK licence sends me back to the initial greeter with some papers, which I fill out, hand over and have returned along with a new ticket, to go see a new staff member. She takes my papers, then takes my photo and administers an eye test. I pass that one too, and I'm free to go drive.

In three months I can come back and get tested for a full licence. Jaidyn reminds me that this will be just in time for the infamous Minnesotan Winter, a perpetually capitalised event distinct from regular winter in both the length and severity of the season and the sheer amount of time everyone spends discussing it.

It's like living with the Starks, and I wouldn't be entirely shocked to learn that somewhere around Duluth there may well be a giant ice wall manned by grim, black clad watchers, defending the US from all the wild men, mammoths and ice zombies Canada throws at them.

In the meantime we leave. I'll have a licence sent to me soon, and won't have to carry my customary ID bundle. We set off, and I start to tell Jaidyn about exactly how far from a cyclist you have to be.

Because it definitely isn't six feet.