Like a Boss

So there are serious marks and minor marks that you can accumulate on the British driving exam. Depending on how grievous your error is, you can be slapped with either one of these bad boys. You're allowed 15 minors before you fail, but no serious marks should dare show up on your evaluation sheet or it's back to the lists for you! And in this case, "back to the lists" meant, back to the scraggly end of a 12-week-long queue to re-take your practical exam. (Unless through clever espionage and internet stalking you managed to jump the queue when some lesser mortal lost heart and mysteriously cancelled.)

Anyway, despite the image that the driving test proctor is the stone-faced gargoyle guarding the entrance to Minas Morgul (though I think the land of legal driving should have a happier Middle-Earth equivalent), there is a decent bit of lee-way to be given in passing your test. However, your best bet - aside from being wickedly prepared - is to cultivate the perfect atmosphere and then hope for the trifecta.

I'm a nicely-mannered, 24-year-old, pregnant lady, so already my sympathy points are quite high. But then, my friends, I had the good grace and fortune to happen upon The Trifecta.
1) My instructor was a lady. A lady my mom's age...who likes babies. And likes to talk about babies.
2) All the roads I drove on were either in our old neighbourhood on the other side of town or, were fortuitously close to our new home on the north side of town. WIN.
3) The one reversing manoeuvre I was asked to complete was to back into a parking space at the end of the test. There was one other car in the parking lot.

Seriously; could they have made the test much easier in the end? Well, yeah: I could have done it on a closed test track like back in Maryland, but hey! I'm not complaining at this point. I passed! And not only did I pass: now I'm going to invoke the right to use my blog for shameless self-promotion and guilt-free bragging to say that I passed perfectly. I'm like the Mary Poppins of driving tests! Not a single minor mark against me: my cheery test proctor found my driving to be flawless.

Practically perfect in every way.

So now, I get to heave a huge sigh of relief and go choose the greasy, fried, salty, and delicious take-out dinner of my choice as a fitting reward for my efforts. I smile now at the end of an era - I'm legal again!