Spelling Error Leads to Hypothetical Jail Time

After failing my first driver’s test and preparing extensively for my second test, I was determined to leave the DMV as a licensed driver. The test went without incident, and I scored a ninety-three. I was quite pleased to finally receive my license, and all I had left to do was take my license picture. With a multitude of folded papers in my grasp, my mother and I made our way to the photo area, which consists of a blue screen, a computer, a camera, a desk with a person standing behind it, and a little machine which you must autograph before getting your picture taken.

I didn’t understand the significance of the signature-machine when I had received my permit, so the signature underneath that picture was downright atrocious. Not this time. I explained to my mother that I planned to write my signature more skillfully, in order to make my license look more presentable.

“Remember,” my mother said evenly, “write slowly.”

I nodded and said of course I would. After all, it was obviously impossible for me to mess up a second time.

And then the photographer said, “Write your name here.” He gestured to the mechanical-signature-signing-like-grocery-stores-have-machine. I approached it confidently. I picked up the pen-but-not-really-a-pen. And I put it onto the screen, and attempted to sign my name legibly and gracefully. As I finished my first name, I smiled to myself.

No more catching Julia Eppes off guard, I thought. No more deception. I was going to do everything right: pass my drivers test right, write my name right, and drive right until I die right.

I put down the pen and scribbled my last name. Everything was going smoothly; it was indeed far more legible than my previous attempt. I was pleased until I reached the very end of my simple, five-letter last name. When I finished my name, I froze in disbelief. The realization hit me that I had written a second “s” at the end of my name.

It read “Julia Eppess.” The singular misplaced “s” multiplied rampantly before my eyes. Julia Eppessss. Julia Eppessssssss. Like some sort of serpent was saying my name, tongue flicking between its teeth. Sssss. Julia Eppessssssssssss.

Before I could object, the signature disappeared from the screen and the man told me to stand in from of the blue screen and look at the blue dot and smile. I felt incredibly foolish. How could I manage to misspell my own name in the first place? Secondly, I realized my name was going to be misspelled on my driver’s license until I get a new one in 2013. And a third, more disturbing idea came to mind: Could there be possible repercussions to having a differently spelled name in comparison to the printed name on the license?

My mind flashed to a hypothetical situation: being pulled over by a police officer, (for a hypothetically small offense such as going 30 miles per hour in a 25 zone, which actually knocked me down a few points on my driver’s test) and him taking one hypothetical look at my driver’s license. “Why is it spelled differently?” he would ask, hypothetically. “Good sir,” I would graciously reply, hypothetically, “I accidently spelled it incorrectly.” He would be hypothetically skeptical, and proceed to take me to the hypothetical “big house.”

And I would hypothetically go down in history as the kid who hypothetically (hysterically) spelled her own last name wrong.