Lee Geiger

Few people are successful unless other people want them to be.

Charlie Brown

It’s been a long while since I’ve published anything about Nelson Geiger. To be honest, Big Brother has been very quiet of late, providing little in the way of new material. But last month, from clear out of nowhere, Nelson sent an email detailing his quest to earn an Ecuadorean driver’s license. Why my 63-year old sibling felt the urge to acquire one after four years in Ecuador is beyond me. Perhaps he dreams of one day cornering the Uber market in Quito. Whatever his logic dictated, feel free to pull up a chair, crack open a cold one, and get ready for an Ecuadorean literary exposé of “Better Call Nelson.”

(What follows is a Google translation of Nelson-ese…sort of)

May 2014: “Bored with teaching English to my flock of farmers, I started thinking about obtaining an driver’s license in Ecuador. The first order of business was to gather my California driving history. That took some doing, as my driving record can best be described as ‘colorful.’ After receiving my documents, I had to see a Notoria/Abogado (lawyer) and have everything translated into Spanish. This process cost me a pretty peso. Then I had to go to the Cruz Roja (Red Cross) to have my blood drawn to determine my blood type. That information goes on your driver’s license. That way, if you die here in a traffic accident, the government knows how much money they can get for your blood.”

September 2014: “I showed up at the Agencia Nacional de Transito (aka, the DMV) with my blood type and multiple color copies of each document (you have to bring copies with you in Ecuador, as the government is too broke to make their own copies). After waiting an eternity, my name finally got called. Before you could say ‘hola,’ the clerk at the window with half a set of teeth informed me that my request was being DENIED. It turned out my California Driver’s License had expired two months earlier. Señor Sensodyne said there was nothing he could do for me, and that all my work and expense had been for nothing. How do you say D’OH in Spanish?”

October 2014: “Undeterred, I decided to approach the problem from a different angle. As a resident of Ecuador, with all the proper papers and ID, I could go about the process of obtaining a driver’s license just like any other citizen. How do you say BRIBE in Spanish?

“The first thing I had to do was sign up for Driver’s School. So Irene (my wife) and I jumped on a bus and made the two-hour journey to a school in Quito. After we arrived, I were told I could not attend the school because A) I couldn’t speak Spanish, B) I couldn’t read Spanish, or C) I couldn’t comprehend a single word of Spanish. Somewhere in Ecuador the law states that I have to know more Spanish than ‘Dónde está el baño?’

“Luckily for me, Irene knows her way around Ecuadorean red tape. She took me to a mall here in the valley, where a young girl planted inside a booth, who was more interested in texting her friends than discerning my knowledge of Spanish, allowed me to sign up for a Driver’s School in nearby San Rafael. How do you say BOOYAH in Spanish?

“Irene joined me for the week long class, and the teachers allowed her to translate for me. Because I knew the Spanish words for ‘left,’ ‘right’ and ‘go straight,’ I was able to pass the driving portion of the class fairly easily. On the last day of school, however, I had to take a written test. Fortunately, the teacher allowed Irene to translate the test for me. Before taking the test, she and I worked out a series of hand signals for the answers…one finger for ‘A,’ two fingers for ‘B,’ and so on…and if she didn’t know the answer, she would scratch her head. Believe it or not, I passed the school’s written test and graduated. Go figure. How do you say NEXT in Spanish?

November/December 2014: “Now came the hard part. The last step involved returning to the DMV and taking THEIR written test. There were only two problems; one, the test is administered on a computer, in a small room built for one. That meant I had to take the test by myself. And two, the test questions were in Spanish. I needed more than help. I needed a miracle.

“To prepare for the test, I downloaded about 300 test questions from the DMV website and studied every day for two months. My strategy was to pick out a few Spanish words from each question to give me some idea of what they were asking, and connect those words to the correct answers, which were also in Spanish. Irene was super-helpful during this stage, but I think even she knew the reality of my situation. How do you say HOPELESS in Spanish?

January 2015: “Test Day. Irene and I went to the DMV with my graduation papers, blood test results, and my resident ID card. After another interminable wait, we got to the window where an older gentleman in Coke-bottle-thick glasses started talking to me in rapid-fire Spanish. After a few minutes, he stared at me and realized my “dear in the headlights” look wasn’t an act. He looks over at Irene and asks her in Spanish if I have any idea what he’s talking about. She says, “un poquito (a little).” He then asked Irene if I knew the test was in Spanish. “Sí,” she said. Señor Specs smiled, shook his head and pointed me toward a tiny room.

“I walked in and shut the door. You could hear the roaches scurrying across the puke-green linoleum floor. Here I was, Nelson Archie Geiger, in bum-squat Ecuador, all alone in a closet, with barely a working knowledge of a Taco Bell menu, about to take an exam administered completely in Spanish. How in the name of huevos rancheros did I get here?

“An hour later, with sweat oozing through my jeans, I simultaneously closed my eyes and hit the FINISH button. I was allowed to miss only four questions. After saying a prayer and summoning a bucket full of courage, I opened an eye to see the results. Then I opened the other eye. I missed three.

If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to say PASS in Spanish…PASAR!!!

March 2015: “My next objective is to get my motorcycle license. I’ll have to go to motorcycle Driving School and take another DMV test. I hope Irene’s up for it….JA JA JA!”