it wasn’t uncommon for kids in high school to have a car, or at least know several kids who owned cars. Except me. A good majority of my friends never bothered to learn to drive, due to lack of time, effort, or motivation, or they had their parents to drive them everywhere. As for me, I am forbidden from getting a driver’s license under federal law. If that sounds needlessly extreme, let me direct your attention to the wild man in the second paragraph, with the disclaimer that because of this law, I was forced to ride the bus for an entire hour every day to and from work. With people like that guy. And like the woman who was so tan, she was more red than brown. Her skin looked reptilian, and it was impossible to tell her age. She could be anywhere from thirty to a hundred, and her sun-bleached hair always looked wet with grease. She always wore a brown velour dress that went to her ankles. She never wore a bra, and her tits hung down to her waist, swaying like twin pendulums every time the bus made a sudden stop. Regulars on the bus would see her coming and would adjust themselves out of the way because this woman carried with her a stench so foul it didn’t seem possible that it came from Earth. It was like how fresh shit would smell on Mars. This cloud of smell wafted throughout the bus and people would glance back and forth to each other as if others recognizing the odor would somehow deplete its strength, would somehow return all the air back to the bus and purge the world of this odious stink. The woman doesn’t notice anything, just stares out the window blankly at the sun. The law that exists that keeps me from getting a license probably didn’t intend for such repercussions as a lower-middle class English girl being stuck on a bus for an hour while attempting to work so she could save enough money for college (as this law also prevents her from getting any kind of scholarships or federal financial help). It’s called the REAL ID Act, a federal law that came into effect shortly after September 11th, 62
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