Taking dad to the BMV to renew his license against my better instincts:
Dad gets into the car and mentions that he smells really bad from his G.I. problems. Trying to put this out of my mind.
Dad has GPS going on his phone at the same time that GPS is directing me from the car.
I think I can tolerate this, but tolerance lasts just one minute before I ask him to turn it off.
Dad wonders aloud in the quiet BMV why certain women clients are taking so long at the window.
Dad says, “Come up with me in case I can’t hear what the woman says!”
I’m thinking that I will help him as little as possible because the BMV woman should know how deaf he is. Can it really be safe to drive with such a hearing impairment?
She asks if he wants to be an organ donor. He and I laugh. What organs does he really have to share after all his cancer surgeries and with all of his senses declining? She laughs too when we let her in on the joke.
He gets through the vision test, and the woman exclaims what a great photo he sat for. He must be thinking that she would’ve fancied him even better 30 lbs heavier, before the cancer surgeries.
I almost think she is flirting with him.
He is the proud bearer of a license now that will last til he is 92.
I’m alarmed at this, but evidently Ohio is full of elderly people. If the state starts disqualifying them for drop foot, walkers, deafness, and confusion, there won’t be enough drivers left to buy gas and pay gas taxes. The roads will go to shit.
So at their BMV training, the higher ups are telling the clerks, “Just send em through, send em through unless they’ve run over a human in the last 5 years”.