Meanderings: March 6, 2000

Monday,
March 6, 2000

When it rains, it pours.

I was going to write a scathing entry about my Vägverket theory test this morning. Yes, they dicked me around once again -- they weren't going to let me take the test because I hadn't gotten a form filled in by my instructor stating that I knew how to drive. But I knew how to drive, I explained -- I'd been driving for sixteen years.

Much muttering between the interpreter and the test administrator (another thing which enraged me -- the test was a relatively simple computer program. A COMPUTER PROGRAM. You're telling me they couldn't have gotten a version in English, French, German and the other major European langages? Why did I have to be saddled with a mediocre interpreter who was older than God? Bah -- I wave my paw). Well, the test admin said, it wasn't up to him -- the form had to be signed by someone who knew I could drive.

We argue back and forth for at least twenty minutes before I finally get him to allow Scott Brown (the guy who came with me to the slippery test), then I call up Scott and beg him to come down to the testing center. Beautiful man that he is, he did, signed the form, and I told him I loved him and kissed him on the lips for his trouble. He blushed and giggled, so that was all right.

By this point, I was tired, massively angry, and a bundle of nerves. So Methusalah next to me starts reading off the questions on the screen in the shakiest voice you can imagine, with some really bizarre phrasings. It's bad enough that they no longer print the Rules of the Road in English, so I had to work with a 10-year-old library copy and a new Swedish copy -- what made it worse was that his phrasings sound nothing like what I read in the book. I wound up missing a stupid, stupid question because he read, "What document must you have on you at all times when driving a private car -- your driver's license, the vehicle registration, or the vehicle service record?" Now, the book said that you should have your license with you, of course (if you didn't, you would get a fine, but that was about it), but you had to have the vehicle registration in case you got stopped. I heard the imperative, picked B, and blew the question.

This sort of thing, all through the test. I read Swedish well enough that I could puzzle out some of the stuff on the screen, and even I knew that what he was saying and what was printed didn't exactly match up semantically, and in a test like this semantics count a lot. The result of this contretemps was that I flunked the test by eight points. Oh, but they were booking appointments for the June testing period, the test administrator says through God's great uncle (both of them sniggering a little), so I could just sign up for that in three days, once I'd received my bill and paid it for this test.

I was very proud of myself. I stood up, gave them a cold smile, thanked them ever so for their efforts, assured them that they would get what they deserve for what they had done today, and walked out in an incandescent rage. To paraphrase the immortal words of Eric Cartman, Esq., "Screw you guys -- I'm going to England." Tina's picking up a provisional license form for me while she's in London, and I'm going to take a week-long intensive course near the end of April and just get my English license. It will be expensive, but I will be rogered with an adze before I give one more bloody cent to the fucking Vägverket.

I said I was going to write a scathing report, didn't I? Sorry -- it just slipped out. You see, I heard something that put all this petty bureaucratic bullshit into perspective -- we just found out that Lyndon's friend Stephi died on Saturday. Stephi was a Swiss Miss he knew from IRC -- she used to be the girlfriend of Christian, the guy who spent New Year's Eve with us, and a sweeter, happier, bubbly kid did not walk the face of this globe. She was the type of person who simply wanted everyone else in the world to be happy, too -- a tonic for the soul. She and Christian broke up a few months ago, but they both stayed friends and used to tease each other in the chat room.

Then Stephi developed some sort of stomach trouble that had her in and out of the hospital since November (we don't have details because her family and her new girlfriend don't like Christian and won't tell him anything). And tonight, Christian came into the chat room tonight and just sat there, not doing anything. "Right then, I knew what he was going to say -- I knew it, I could just feel it," Lyndon said, crying. This is the second close net.friend he's lost in the last six months (the first one died in September from cystic fibrosis), and this time it's even worse -- at least with Sal, he knew that the end was inevitable.

But Stephi? She was only 22, way too young to expect something like this (we didn't even know she was seriously ill, only that she had to go into the hospital a few times for this stomach problem). And she had so much fun with Lyndon -- he's been starved for roleplaying groups since we left Canada, so they used to role-play all the time in the chat room, especially after Christian bought her a Harley Quinn costume one Halloween. Don't tell me cyberspace keeps you remote from people -- you didn't see my husband curled up in my arms crying because his "Harley Quinn" was gone.

I'm sorry -- I can't write anything profound or pithy right now. This is just sad and wretched and horrible, and it shouldn't have happened, goddammit.

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