Passed

We were off the island at 8.00am sharp heading towards St. Stephen. The Roosevelt Park was friendly enough to let us ‘borrow’ a driver for their 15 seat passenger van. Even though I took my first driver license back in 1970 and Bea a bit later, we were both anxious and quite a bit nervous how we would make out on today’s driver license extension. We reached Service New Brunswick's Offices at 9.30am and still had 30 minute to wait for the first road test. When the driver examiner lady walked up to us I let Bea go first. Done is done, I thought. After doing the pre-trip inspection of the van, Bea came back in – a bit long in the face. I was worried when I looked at her. And sure enough there was a problem – a big one as such. Driver examiner had found that the van didn’t have a fire extinguisher and was missing three warning triangles. So conclusion was she couldn’t do the test.  OMG – I thought and went outside to talk to the lady. It turned out she was nice, but adamant. No test without the two requisites. But then she suggested we get ourselves into shopping mood and go buy those items and we would be going forth with the test. So we grabbed our driver and off we went, first to Canadian (Crappy) Tire. It turned out they had a fire extinguisher but no triangles. Off again to the Quest Auto Parts. They were sold out – had only one triangle left. Next place further down the road was a little parts shop opposite a gas station. Under a lot of dust we found what we were looking for – a full set of 3 triangles in a red box. We paid in a hurry and were back at Service New Brunswick well 30 minutes after we had left. The road test could resume with Bea being first. She was gone maybe 15 minutes when she came back – with the van in good shape. Again I could spot sorrows in her face. This time the driver examiner had found out that she was prohibited from driving at night. We were both flabbergasted to say the least. Bea has always had the better night vision of the two of us. Somewhere someone had made a mistake along the line. Driver examiner went investigating and got on the phone. It turned out somebody had used wrong code for her having to use eyeglasses under driving. But she had passed the road test – she said. When her driver license was to be updated for the extension she checked the back of it --- and there it was again, the provision of driving by daylight only. Again a new driver license had to be printed. I was wondering whether we would be able to negotiate a rebate for quantities here. Next man to do the road test was me. I am eager to tell you that no complications turned up under the next 25 minutes. So when everything was paid for  you could see two happy faces in the mirror. Thanks for stopping by!