Stay off the sidewalks -- oh wait, there aren't any

I am now officially a driver. I've had a temporary license for several weeks and a car for almost one, but after one trip out in the car I realized that there was a reason they only gave us one car key: only one driver was authorized on our lease, which means I was driving without insurance. Oops.

Before work this morning, we drove over to the hotel from which our car is leased. Foobart drove while I navigated, which means peering at a map in one hand and a GPS unit in the other and trying to work out some way the sets of information might intersect.

When we arrived at the hotel there was no one at the car rental booth, but another hotel employee came over with cell phone in hand to tell us that the rental agent would be with us in a few minutes, and so he was. He didn't like my temporary license (which is actually not even the temporary license but the receipt for a temporary license, which shows that I will soon be getting a temporary license) because it doesn't have a driver number and he needed to put a number down. "No problem!" he exclaimed brightly. (We hear that a lot here.) "You have American license?" I gave him my Pennsylvania license and he found a couple of promising-looking numbers to write down. "No problem," he said again. "You will drive today. Don't worry!" He couldn't find the date of issue, and when I anxiously pointed it out he grinned at me and promised again that I'd drive today. When the form was almost all filled out, he asked Foobart to the car key, which Foobart produced after fumbling through his pockets for a moment. The rental agent took the key and then solemnly presented me with it. "See? You will drive today!"

And so I did. In fact, Foobart's key is still in my pocket.