[texas bullshit/car accident talk/trauma talk/body horror talk] this is about what it takes to get your license in texas for the first time. this plurk will be heavy but i wanna talk out my last 30hrs or so. good news is: i have my license. bad news is: it's restricted until tuesday when i can ACTUALLY do my driving test.

so texas decided to kick the goalpost down the road one last time for me, and despite everything the "GET READY FOR YOUR APPOINTMENT" material had, did NOT let me do my road test today because it has to be scheduled separately apparently

the issue with this: appointments take forever to get in austin

kels and robin are leaving on the 23rd and i need to drive them to the airport and back

same with picking them up

so

i go to schedule, find ONE appointment on tuesday the literal farthest it could be within an hour's drive radius

the next earliest at any other location: march 24th

so we're going to get horrifically inconvenienced and start our day two hours early and i'll miss half the day of work (which sucks bc i'm missing p much an entire paycheck's worth bc we're closing again)

but even if it were not holiday trip time constraints making us do this on tuesday, i needed to take this appointment because texas does something i have never fucking seen another state do

when you are getting a first time license in texas, which i have to get bc mine expired more than 2 years ago, you have to get certified through their driver impact program.

what this entails is simple. watch 3 videos and take a 5-question quiz at the end of each video.

the videos are impact stories from victims of distracted/drunk severe accidents and their families

with extremely dissonant upbeat music-backed interstitial segments between the stories that involve a bunch of statistics getting listed at you

these are full interviews with grieving parents and people disabled by their injuries/the grief of being a murderer

one of the stories featured a 17yo girl who died bc she lost control while texting, talked in intimate detail about her injuries, and showed pictures of her in the hospital before she was pronounced dead

which was lovely, as someone who watched his 17yo brother on monitors in the hospital, disfigured from his injuries and braindead, and had to say goodbye to him

watching mothers break as they talked about their dead teenagers/young adults, while remembering helping my brother's naked mother to her feet because she broke down sobbing in the shower over losing a second child and couldn't get up past the screaming

the questions were usually 3 about the statistics

and 2 about intimate details of the crashes

the very first question of the very first quiz was "Where did [victim]'s father find his cell phone in the wreckage?"

anyway i had to survive that yesterday, which led to a pretty bad ptsd meltdown

and if i don't do this driving test on tuesday, i have to go through that again. there's no seeking through the videos, only pausing, and it won't let you go to the quiz until the video is played through

but the certification only lasts 90 days

i cannot wait for this to be over with and i cannot wait to never have to go through that bullshit again

anyway i got blasted last night and played a bunch of minecraft and am doing it again tonight

can't even get through normal ass tasks this year without being forced into trauma

fuck texas. plurk done, i just wanted to fuckin. vent about having to go through that shit.

jfc texas

Jesus christ. I'm sorry you were forced to watch that shit. hope getting blasted and playing minecraft helps take some of the edge off at least

I didn't feel able to say anything at all so I left the emoji as a reaction above. but I'm sorry the state put you through that.

that is fucking brutal and i'm so sorry

Jeezus FUCK

I’m so sorry Charlie that’s so fucked

it is, and I can't imagine why they think it is acceptable material to prepare to drive with

that's the tactic you use to get kids to never touch drugs, not adults to never touch a car