DMV, diabetes, and cheap batteries, oh my!

I guess I should go in the order of the title. DMV is, to say the least, not the place I want to spend almost two hours just to get my learner's permit. My mom and I spent an hour and thirty-six minutes in line, waiting for our number, F738, to be called. They eventually called F739 and F740 when my mom realized that they had skipped our number. F741, 2, and 3 were called while she went into another line to complain. The lady at the desk she complained at said that we missed our number. Lady at Desk: The DMV is so stinkin' boring that, for entertainment, we were both staring at the little signs at the top of the wall that said things like [Window 10] [C016 Please Go To] (and yes, it was backwards like that.) Almost the entire time. We didn't miss the number. So she suggested giving my mom another number, which was immediately put down by my dear mother by something like "No, I do not want to wait another HOUR AND A HALF." So we got service at the next available window, where we showed my documents, I took a 10-second eye exam thingy, and was sent off to wait by the "examiner's" desk. The examiner called for me almost immediately when I first got over there and then again, and I identified myself and was sent to test station 4, where the little TV showed me tons of info about the test (most of it was repeated a few times) and asked me questions like "What is your name?" Four names of girls, one was mine. "What is your birthday?" Four dates, one was my birthday. I was almost surprised that it didn't start asking me "What is your quest?" To get a learner's permit. "What is your favorite color?" Red. "What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?" What do you mean? An African or European swallow? "What? I...I don't know that! Auuuuuuuugh!" Anywho, then it told me the number of questions, etc. I aced the signs part of the test and discovered that pushing the onscreen buttons was painful to the pointer finger nerves, but what the heck. Took the second part of the test. Aced first twenty questions (the minimum) and so it stopped, because, even if I had gotten the next five wrong, I still would have gotten a nice piece of stiff glossy DMV paper with my name, picture, birthday, etc. on it. It told me to go back to "The examiner" and began counting down:
5
4
3
2
1
and went back to the stupid little welcome screen. Around three, I went back, declared my doneness of the test, had my picture taken (I should have smiled, but my smiles look cheesy and forced anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter) and got my permit. And left that stupid place. I had no clue how to drive yet, so my mom drove me home.

Anyway, the diabetes part. A while ago, the DMV sent my mom a packet with a cover letter saying, basically, "You have a medical problem that brings into question your safeness as a driver. Go get all of your doctors to sign forms and increase their arthritis problems. In 30 days. [evil voice of doom]OR LOSE YOUR LICENSE.[/evil voice of doom]
She was able to get the signatures she needed, but we are both sure that such a letter awaits me threatening my permit because of my diabetes. Both her endocronologist and mine were like "That's only if you've gotten into an accident or if someone turns you in for unsafe driving, right?" And our responses: "Not now." Virginia's DMV, or at least the one in our area, is getting stricter on diseases and those who have them's driving privileges. So, even though I just had a doctor's appointment yesterday, I may need to get ANOTHER one (hard in only a month) soon. Lovely. Thank you, DMV, for making life harder.

And the reason I have been using a normal toothbrush instead of an electric one for over a month is.......[begin drumroll] .........[cymbal crash][end drumroll]CHEAP BATTERIES! The stupid toothbrush would work for a couple seconds and stop. My mom finally took matters into her own hands and replaced the batteries of my toothbrush with the nice little timer and such. Guess what kind of batteries were inside?






Have you ever heard of Vinnie batteries? They're the ones all huge right here.

Those are the ones that came with the stupid thing. Cheap batteries that don't last like energizer bunnies. Or duracells, or (my dad's favorite) Rayovac. VINNIE. Sounds kinda wimpy. Is kinda wimpy. After getting that toothbrush, it lasted for, perhaps, two months or so. The five-buck electric toothbrush I used before lasted much longer than that on normal SANE BRAND NAME batteries. Brand names aren't always good (clothes, but maybe that's because I think clothes shopping is BORING AS HECK), but in the case of batteries, stick with normal.