Getting a NC Driver's License

I'm not proud to admit it, but even though I've lived here for three years, I never traded in my New Jersey driver's license. Once I heard that you had to take the written test in order to get your license transferred, I clung onto my old license like a toddler hangs onto her favorite blankie. I hate tests. Let me repeat--I hate tests. I still wake up in a cold sweat some nights dreaming that I've forgotten to study for some college final.

When I moved from NYC to New Jersey, they also had the written test system, and I hung on until they changed the rule and you didn't need to take the test anymore. Amen! I waited out the system and won! One day I was hugely pregnant with my first son, and I got nailed by a Jersey cop going 60 in a 45 mile zone. I handed over my NY license, and pretended I'd just moved to NJ (reality was that I'd been living there two years). My parents were in the back seat, and the cop took one look at my huge belly and let me go with a warning.

Now, let me say that you are required to change your old driver's license to the NC one after 30 days of living here. Ahem. And what I was doing was completely wrong. After about a year of living in Charlotte, I got pulled over by a cop as I was racing home to make a business phone meeting. I was going 60 in a 45 zone again (sorry!). The police man asks me for my license, and I tell him that my husband has moved here, but I'm not officially moved yet (sorry again!). Okay, I fibbed! He carefully took down the address in Charlotte and entered it into his cop computer, and he told me to slow down. No ticket, only a warning. A bit after this, instead of studying for the NC drivers test, I purchased a radar detector. I didn't get caught again.

Last month, I realized that my NJ license was about to expire within 4 weeks. The other issue, was that I was going to be boarding a plane for business travel, and my only form of picture I.D. was about to kick the bucket. I HAD to suck it up and take the darned test. I basically had no choice. I used this handy cheat sheet and read it over until I had it committed to memory. I went to the Monroe DMV and grabbed the road signs card at the front desk and sat in the waiting area for about an hour studying the thing like a fiend.

I'm nervous as hell, but get called into the testing room finally. I did my eye test by looking into the little contraption and reading the letters. Passed. I then do the signs test in the same little contraption. Passed. The man then sends me over to the computer where I would be taking the actual driving test. There's a young guy already there in the throes of his exam, and I sit down and put on the headphones to listen to the test and get ready to go. I'm sweating. I'm scared. I gotta pass or I can't get on that plane with an expired license. I can't drive either.

You have to get 20 out of 25 questions correct, and I race through the thing with flying colors because all the questions are EXACTLY the ones on the cheat sheet! I got just one wrong at the very end because it was worded in a funny/tricky manner. I see the kid next to me still stammering through his test and I pump my fist in the air as I knew I passed. He glances over at me in dismay and I shrug (sorry!).

I go back to the fellow that tested me, and he grins. He sends me over to get my photo snapped and minutes later they hand over my brand new, legit North Carolina Driver's License. I could not have been prouder, and it got me a bit closer to feeling like a native Charlottean. I was no longer sporting an transplant license...now no one would be able to tell the difference between me and a long-time local.

I still have my radar detector, but I've also slowed down quite a bit--after all, I live in Charlotte.