We continue or adventure a few months later. It was now January and we decided to take another stab at getting the child their permit so they could begin driving. The first attempt did not go as planned, all we could do was hope that the second attempt was more successful.
We arrived in the morning and again had to sit down and wait for the opportunity to be seen and hopefully permitted. Only one child came with me the second time, the other one wanted to be anywhere but at the DPS office. We had our number and we had noting but time to wait on our hands. I decided it would be a good time to get my phone out and play around on it, my child sat there nervously waiting to take the permit test.
Once again the time it took was around an hour and a half. A few minutes before our number was called, my child looked at the verification of enrollment they had gotten from their school for the first attempt, and noticed it had expired the day before. I told them not to worry about it, we were still going to try and get the permit.
They called our number, and once again they questioned the Texas birth certificate. Once again, we are trying to get a Texas permit with a Texas birth certificate. After some research on the clerk’s part, we decided that it was, if fact, a legitimate birth certificate. One hurdle jumped.
The clerk began going down the list and verifying all of the different things that needed to be verified (which is a lot, by the way) and then paused at, you guessed it, the verification of enrollment.
“Everything is in order and looks good, but this verification of enrollment expired yesterday” they informed me.
“You weren’t open yesterday” I said. “That is not thirty business days?” I asked, panic rising inside me.
“No sir, with it being a new semester in school, they are going to want to see that she is still enrolled in her school and has good grades.”
“School has not started back up again, and you have her report card right there” I said.
“They are going to want one that is from this semester” they told me. “I’m really sorry, but I cannot accept this one.”
The many thoughts that ran through my head were not good. I decided to keep them to myself, since the clerk had been kind and was very apologetic about the expired VOE. I thanked them for their time, and decided that today was not the day to get into a fight at the Texas Department of Public Services.
My child and I left the building, defeated, frustrated and visibility upset. The child decided at that moment that they didn’t want to drive anymore, but I told them to take some time to think on it.
We now had two attempts at getting a permit, and we were shot down both times. I was trying to consider why the State makes it so hard for a teen to get their permit, it’s not like I was asking them to make the child an adult or something. There was one thing that I knew leaving that day, and that was there would be a third trip to the DPS in our near future.