Driving the van

I've obviously been slacking off in the blog writing. I've been following all of yours, but life has been crazy enough to struggle to post. Since my last post, I've spent 2 5-day weekends in Columbus, Justin has been here once and I've almost completed another quarter in school. But since I am sitting here needing a break from writing papers, I decided a blog post is in order. And I even have a funny story to tell (although you may have needed to have been there in the craziness of the moment) about last night.

Yesterday, I drove this 14 person van around town. We were hosting a conference and thought we wouldn't subject every person to the pouring rain in order to get to the special evening event. Someone asked if I could/would drive a van. I said sure... its been a while since I've driven a huge vehicle, but I did drive a suburban at 16 with relatively shaky driving skills... what's a van today, even if it has been a decade?

So, after meeting a fellow student at school to walk over to the parking garage to pick up 2 state vans, driving through a torn up downtown (they are putting in another streetcar line) 10 blocks to the Hilton, watching my fellow student lock his keys in his van (!!!), I filled my van up with conference goers. I don't know if it was my driving, or my diminutive stature in comparison to the van or what, but 90% of the time someone in the van, in jest, would ask "so, do they make you get a special class X license to drive this?"

I replied "Actually, no, but the driving situation is quite ironic." This would shut up the chatter (and I soon refined my story to milk it for all it was worth). I would then describe how I am a PhD student, etc and when I came to Portland, I went car free. "But, never fear" I would say, "I do still maintain an Ohio drivers licence. As far as the University is concerned, though, I have no licence at all. When we called to verify where to pick up the keys, my fellow student asked if we both needed to go get them. The university said no, just one of us, but make sure to bring a drivers licence. My fellow student asked if he needed to bring licences for both of us. They replied no. So for all the University knows, anyone could be driving this van, with or without a licence." About that point, we would have completed the 12 block drive and everyone would pile out, laughing.

From this story I got offers of drivers licences, tips, and even dissertation signatures! I turned all down. Although the dissertation signatures were tempting... they were quite famous people!