Eye-Carumba!

Going about our daily life we've noticed that the Simpsons cartoon is pretty accurate about North America. The 7-11 corner shop on our street is laid out in the same way as the Kwiki-mart and even has the low counter in the middle of the shop with beef jerky by the till. Luckily I managed to stop myself from saying, "Thank-you Apu". One other similarity is the driver licensing office. Fans of the Simpsons might remember the episode where the wrinkly old man tries to get his licence and fails the eye test miserably. Well I was that man on Tuesday. In order to get a car I had to get a Canadian driving licence. It's not too difficult as there is a reciprocal arrangement with the UK so I just had to hand in my UK licence, show proof that I live in Canada and take an eye test. The vibes weren't good when I managed to drive into the licensing office through the one-way exit road! I then fumbled my words when I was asked for my address as I didn't know whether to give our current address, the address were moving to or to mention the move at all. I was still slightly unnerved when the licensing lady asked me to look into a large microscope and read the black letters on the white background. I looked into the scope and could barely see a blurred white light let alone the black letters. I decided I try honesty and told her I couldn't see anything, thinking there must be something wrong with the machine. She adjusted a setting and asked me to try again. Now I could see a thin black blur, but number? I had no idea. I thought I'd better at least try as I needed my license. The first figure looked quite wide, but with straight lines so I went with a 4. No comment from the lady so I carried on. A big wide round number with a line in the middle. 8. "Sorry what was that?". 3. "Good. Carry on". She must have been having a good day because I didn't see any of those numbers and was just lucky that we use a base 10 arithmetic system so there weren't too many options each time. I got my license and left, using the exit road.