Getting your drivers license is more involved here. I can skip most of the bureaucracy due to my visa status, but I still need a valid health certificate.
The questionnaire is not available in English, and both I and Google misunderstood a verb tense. The question was “Are you being treated for ADD/ADHD?” but I thought it was “Have you ever been….” and answered Ja.
If you answer Ja to anything, you have to get a doctor to certify that you’re not a risk on the roadways and are being appropriately treated by a medical professional.
Oops.
I didn’t have a GP and certainly didn’t know how to get an appointment with a psychiatrist. I let it go, as simply too much trouble given I wasn’t expecting to drive … maybe ever. But the DMV eventually sent me a referral - in English, no less.
I went to see this doctor and it was sketchy as hell. He was in an office that could have been assembled in 3 hours and bore a passing resemblance to the set of a well known porn production involving casting couches. Cash only.
He also fit the stereotype of the Greek or Turkish mobster, and despite wearing a well tailored suit, had egregious amounts of body hair coming out of … everywhere.
The interview went on as you might expect an ADHD evaluation to go. Despite the above, very professional. Until the end.
“So, uh… hyperactive uh? You have problems with impulse control?”
“Uuuuuuh…”
“You know. Doing things. Not like … the impulses of man.”
With that last he made kind of an “uungh” sound that was very uncomfortably sexual in tone.
“Uuuuuuuh,” I repeated, and then my impulse control failed me. “Does it count if I channel my poor impulse control into the impulses of a man?”
The silence stretched forever and ever. He just stared at me blankly. I knew, before I’d finished what I was saying, that I’d said the wrong thing.
But then … “HAHA! I like you! You funny! Ha! You’re good! You drive! Have a good day!”