Curse of the Kielbasa
or
You Never Sausage a Jinxed Dinner
It was undoubtedly the ol' Curse of the Kielbasa.
When faced with a moral dilemma of whether to pull something out of the freezer for Thursday night's dinner or risk a big jinx by not planning on dinner at home; it can be said by the Fates, "You chose poorly."
After months of delay, mixed with a measure of trepidation, six months of practice and experience where the rubber meets the road and days of anticipation; it was decide that February 24, 2011 would dawn as the day of one of America's Great Rites of Passage for Grant - The TRIP to the DMV for a driver's license.
The night before, Grant sat at the dinning room table and assembled his folder with all documents necessary to avoid rejection by Selma and Patty sitting behind the counter at the Department of Public Safety. We all know that you are going nowhere fast without their stamp of approved on the list of state required documents for the operation of a motor vehicle (Class C).
Grant, does your folder contain:
- Completed Log of on-line computer based Driver's Ed Course work? Check
- Complete Log showing hours behind the wheel? Check
- VOE (Validation of Enrollment, High School) signed by administrator? Check
- Social Security Card? Check
- Passport for proof of citizenship and Photo ID? Check
- Declaration that you are not addicted to drugs or criminally insane? Oh, where did that go?
- Proof of Vehicle Insurance? Check
- Affidavit from driving instructor [Dad], signed and notarized? Check
In celebration of your Rite of Passage we think you should drive us to dinner tomorrow night at a place of your choosing (assuming you do pass the test). Deal?
Deal!
Sue asked me on the morning of the 24th, "Should I put something out to thaw for dinner, or risk jinxing Grant by not pulling anything out of the freezer and plan on having him drive us to dinner with his new driver's license tonight?" We seriously considered how tempted the fates would be if we made definite plans to have Grant drive us to his celebration, weighed against a plan to prepare to cook our own dinner at home. I suggested that we pull something out of the freezer and mention loudly (to no one in particular) that this would be dinner for tonight - NOT tomorrow night. I thought to myself, "Now that is a pretty clever loop hole to avoid tempting fate with the curse of the kielbasa".
Grant made an early escape from his duties as an aide in the High School attendance office and met me in the parking lot at 12:30. I offered him a seat behind the wheel, but he deferred, not knowing exactly where to find the DPS Temple of Teenage Testing, the Valhalla of Vehicles, the Nirvana of Navigators. So I headed toward the one and only sole DPS office in the State of Texas that has his application on file as a permitted driver. It was made very clear when applying for a Driver's Permit, that one had to designate a single DPS location to handle all your records - if you veered either to the north or to the south and you tried to apply at a location different than the one originally designated, YOU WILL BE DENIED. You must travel the straight and narrow road.
As I pulled into the strip mall where the DPS office is located, I noticed a great paucity of parked cars. What good luck! It looks like the usual 55 minute wait amongst squalling kids and multiple cell phone conversations in Espanol will largely be avoided this afternoon, we are going to sail right through this application process! The reality that Grant is never this lucky hits us when we get to the entrance; "Due to Water Damage, this office will be closed until Feb. 28, 2011". We will try again on Monday, Feb. 28, but I suspect the office holding Grant's files will not be opened until mid-March. Bummer!
As long as we were in that part of town, I suggested lunch at Rick's Smokehouse. The Thursday Lunch Special? Yes, as fate would have it - smoked kielbasa.
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