Opalsong's Ekele

 ... Mason did NOT PASS his first attempt at getting a driver's license.

On the flipside, he seemed in decent spirits about it. It seems that he did the the exact same thing that Jas (his partner) did wrong on their first test--he turned left from the far lane. Apparently, the tester did not seem to feel like a lot of other notes were necessary and told him to practice a bit more and come back in a week. All and all, for a fail, not bad at all.

Our of curiosity, for those of you who drive, did you pass the first time? Do you have any funny stories about spectacular fails?

I feel like I might know a few people who did, but most of my immediate friends did not. I failed three times, I think? I'm not exactly sure, but I know it took me slightly longer than a lot of my peers. My memories are pretty fuzzy about my tests. The thing I remember the best is that I wore a black beret (don't judge. It was the 80s) to my final test and I took my hands off the wheel while driving to adjust it and somehow I still passed. Apparently, the tester felt that showed confidence rather than foolheartiness.

I'm still not great at keeping both hands on the wheel.

 Okay, once again, I have failed to keep on keeping on with the blog. But, the vibes of Wednesday called to me, so here I am (as is becoming typical.) I have no idea what it is about Wednesday that provides time for me to think, "Oh, right, DW," but it does seem be The Day it Happens.So here we are.

Today, Saint Paul is blanketed in snow. I note this as it applies to several things I want to talk about.

First, my car, which is in the shop. It has not, in fact, failed me in any serious way. But, Mason is taking his drivers' license test tomorrow and our car needs to pass inspection. One of the things it needs to have? Two working front lights. What does it NOT currently have? YOU GUESSED IT. I was almost not able to bring the car in today because firstly, Troy is booked up weeks in advance due to all the holiday driving/travel that people do. I was able to plead my case with him and we agreed that if I dropped my car off ASAP in the morning, he'd just pop that new light into it at some point in between the regular work. If he has time, he'll make things more profitable for himself by giving me an oil change (which I told him to feel free to do, because Troy prices very failrly and a single light change is going to cost me almost nothing.) 

But secondly? The sky opened up and DUMPED snow on us. I don't know the official number of inches, but we crested at least 4 inches (10.16 cm for my metric friends) because Saint Paul declared a Snow Emergency.

For out of town people, a "Snow Emergency" isn't really an emergency as in "OH GOD EVERYTHING IS SHUT DOWN," but more, "Hey, Saint Paulies, time to move your car to one side of the street or the other so that the plows can come through!" It's also the day when snow emergency workers, like ticketers, go to work. 

You may recall from previous episodes that last snow season (2024-March 2025), I worked as what Saint Paul Public Works colloquially referred to as "taggers." Our official title might have been "ticketers?" But, our job was to drive around the city and write out parking violation tickets, get cars towed, etc., so that the plows could come through and do their thing. 

I am hired for the snow season (2025-26), however the job has changed. We are now "runners" and will be no longer writing tickets. That job is now in the hands of retired and reserve police officers. What does a runner do, you ask? Let me describe it and you can tell me if you think this job will be any fun. A runner will ride along with a police officer, brush the snow from license plates, and stick tickets in windows.

Yep.

There is a reason they did not interview me for this job, nor ask for a resume. 

However, it feels like a job that really doesn't need to exist, doesn't it? 

The saddest part is that I LOVED being a tagger. It's sad because everything I previously loved about that job, the police officers now do. I believe I wrote about this at length before, but basically the things I used to love about the job are all very silly. No one likes handing out parking tickets. However, there were some "fun" things that absolutely played into that part of every kid who used to make siren noises and run around pretending to be a cop. (And yeah, ACAB, but when I did this, I was 5 okay??) Like, in the old job we used to get to use the radio to call in vehicles in need of towing, etc, and we got to use a code that included our temporary badge number. RADIOS, y'all. They're just fun. Because you get to say, "Over." Or in our case, "Clear." Once trained, we got to go out, alone, in company car with heated seats and (sometimes!) heated steering wheels. We got to put on the flashing lights. We got to wear a safety vest. We got to learn the somewhat arcane process of handwriting tickets in those old booklets you sometimes see if you watch 1970s cop shows. DUMB STUFF. But, like, it made the job tolerable, you know?

But the fun part was never, ever: go out in the cold and stick the ticket on the windshield. 

Is the pay good? I mean, it's OKAY. But the shifts are TEN HOURS. It's never less than that. 

Also, speaking of ACAB? I'm not particularly thrilled at the idea of spending ten hours in a squad with a cop. What are we even going to talk about? The last ICE protest I went to? Because "say, were you there?" could get pretty awkward, pretty quickly. 

By chance, I had to turn down this snow emergency. As noted, Mason has his big test tomorrow and I need to be available to drive him out to the test facility. I do not try to work the late shift because I'm pretty sure Saint Paul would not pay me for sleeping in the squad car, and I can not do 8pm to 5 am. I'm too old for that shift. Luckily, there's usually also a day shift.

I'll let you know what it's like when I finally do one, though. Maybe I'll be surprised and there will still be awesome things.