As I sit in the DMV today I’m reminded of a story…
Once upon a time there was a sweet couple who had been married for 12 adventure-filled years. They loved to travel, explore, laugh and banter. After seven long years without more than a night or two away from their precious four children, they stole away on Valentine's Day to Dallas, TX for 5 days.
The wife, in her previous life sans children, was independent, loved to travel alone and had most, if not all her ducks in a row and clothes hung in color spectrum order. Once labeled a free-spirit, she now fought the sinking feeling that she was more flighty than her once "steadfast yet fun."
Knowing all this and loving her even more, the husband occasionally teased her for the increasing frequency in which she found her foot in her mouth or herself chasing rolling canned goods across parking lots (but that’s a story for another day.) .
So the wife planned every detail of the trip with the exception of calling the Lyft driver herself, and on the particular morning they were traveling to Dallas they arrived in the perfect window of enough, but not too much, time to get through security. Together they had pridefully packed in one carry on bag and printed their boarding passes. In the spirit of being kid-free, they laughed, bantered and were a little feisty with one another. To the point in which the wife smiled and snapped a little too loudly, “I don’t need a babysitter!”
They proceeded to security and still laughing, the wife handed her driver’s license and boarding pass to the TSA agent.
The agent said mockingly “Ma’am your license is pretty expired.” And the wife with great indignation replied, “Oh, you must be mistaken, it doesn’t expire until September when I turn fo$&y.”
With the same mocking look the agent chortled “Why don’t you just look at it for awhile then.”
The wife stared hard at that license and read, and reread, the expiration date: 9/27/2017
She may have mumbled an inappropriate word...
The moral of the story is that TSA will let a gal fly for up to one year with an expired license. And the wife doesn’t need a babysitter, she needs a personal assistant and a whole lot of grace. And friends to laugh with. And sometimes a cocktail...which are free if you fly Southwest on Valentines Day.