Barely legal

You know that invincible feeling you get when you accomplish something against all odds? That sudden surge of power when you prove to all naysayers that you are, in fact, not a loser who throws a tantrum when his cat won’t sit still as he tries to wrestle it into a baby leather jacket? But rather, you are a superhero? Sure, maybe instead of a bulletproof suit made of adamantium, you might wear cut-off sweatpants stained with Cheetos dust, and instead of a velvet cape flapping gloriously in the wind, you wear a fanny pack in which you carry some old band-aids and a microcloth to clean your glasses just in case, but damn it, you feel like a superhero, because you’ve done the impossible. You feel untouchable. What? You’ve never felt that? Well, I have that feeling right now, and lemme tell you, it totally rules.

At this moment, I feel I can do anything. It’s a common feeling for someone who has wrestled his demons, and won. Someone who not only entered the lair of the minotaur and survived, but who came strolling out wearing the minotaur’s face as a loin cloth, his hooves as sneakers and swinging a luxurious protective case for his cell phone carefully fashioned out of minotaur nutsack. In your face Theseus! Not only have I looked into the eyes of the nothingness and survived, I’ve also seen nothingness’s conjunctivitis and casually tossed it some antibiotic eyedrops as I walked passed. I have laughed in the face of the abyss so hard, I peed a little. Yes, dear readers, against all odds, I have done the impossible, and now people who said it couldn’t be done are shamefully hanging their heads like someone who just got caught masturbating in the supply room of the Zellers in Alexis Nihon… last week.

That’s right: I now have a driver’s licence. You heard me. Driver’s. Licence. Okay, maybe it’s really a motorcycle licence, but it’s official nonetheless. As in, before I was confined to walking around and riding my bike and taking forever to get somewhere, but now I am certified to operate a crazy fast, crazy heavy motorized vehicle on public streets. Which may or may not be a good thing, given my nervous disposition and penchant for doing stupid things like riding my bicycle drunk or not locking supply room doors in discount department stores.

Now some of you may know that I already have a scooter licence, which I don’t really count as official, as anyone can get one. All you have to do is pass a computerized multiple-choice exam that a monkey could probably ace if it mashed the buttons at random and flung its crap everywhere. This motorcycle licence is the real deal. There were exams and classes and closed circuit tests and a final road test with a real guy who follows you in a car to make sure you’re checking your blind spots, signalling properly and not trying to smash into kids because you imagine the way they would bounce off the front fender would be as hilarious as it is in Grand Theft Auto. After a year of classes and exams and practising, and despite a sprained wrist, pouring rain and a splitting hangover, I passed my final. I am now totally street legal. Or at least, given the freshness of the certification, barely legal.

When the actual licence arrived in the mail, my chest swelled and I had a strange feeling. It was a mix of accomplishment, pride, infallibility and determination. I think it’s called “growing up.” I have taken this grown up feeling as a cue to make some changes in my life and get my shit together. I will stare death in the face, pretend I’m about to make out with him, then just as my lips are about to touch his gross skeleton mouth, I will tap him on the balls and go “Psych.” I will take life by the gonads and use them for an elaborate double dutch routine set to the music of Charlie Schmidt’s Keyboard Cat. And one thing I swear to you here and now: I will totally lock the door when I somehow mysteriously find myself in the supply room at Zellers with a cart full of old lady’s bras.

As part of my newfound grown-upness, I will now be dispensing wisdom in a semi-monthly Riff-Raff segment called Impaired Advice, where I record myself answering readers’ random questions under the influence of some illicit substance. So if you need a drunk or stoned Filipino to tell you what to do about your cheating husband, or what those things on the end of shoelaces are called, e-mail me at:

RIFF-RAFF@SYMPATICO.CA