(File photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Dennis McCarthy has the day off. Here’s a “Best of Dennis” column “Facing Los Angeles on Foot: It All Started with ‘You’ve Got a Letter from the DMV,’” originally published in print on February 2, 2018 in the Los Angeles Daily News.

You know that twinge of doubt you feel when life throws you a slow, hanging curveball you weren’t expecting? You should knock it out of the park, but still…

“Are there any 9:45 left in the line?” shouted the harried woman behind the Department of Motor Vehicles information/appointment counter being besieged with questions as the clock struck 10.

I raised my hand and began elbowing my way through the 10 o’clock people who reluctantly stepped aside to let the 9:45 guy pass. He could feel a bit of hostility in the air.

“You almost missed your appointment time,” the woman said in a tone of voice somewhere between a reprimand and a police officer telling you that this time he will give you a break.

I felt like George Costanza asking the Soup Nazi for more bread.

She told me to take a seat and keep checking the board to see if my number appeared, then go to window 7 for the vision test and pay the $35 renewal fee.

I took three steps back, thanked him profusely, and followed orders. I needed that soup to get around the city.

It seemed like just yesterday that I was a carefree, happily retired man sitting in the backyard drinking a cup of coffee and studying the racing form when my wife came out with the mail.

“You have a letter from the DMV,” he said.

No problem. My license was expiring on my birthday and I thought it was just a letter saying I could renew it by mail, like I always did.

Instead, they wanted to see me in person. I had entered the danger zone for those over 70 and had to take a written exam.

“What if you failed?” my wife asked, offering me her usual 100% support. “I’m not giving you the runaround.”

Lay off? Out of the question. I’ve been driving for 57 years, I know the rules. At least I think I do. What can’t you do when there’s a broken white line on the road and it’s a green or white sidewalk that’s a loading zone?

What if she was right? Could she fail my written exam and leave me stranded in Los Angeles without a driver’s license? In California, 55% of people who take the test fail.

To renew your license you must get 15 or more correct answers on an 18-question test. If you miss four, you will fail.

That’s not difficult to do. Every morning I miss four questions from my wife.

So it came down to relying on my years of driving experience and improvising, studying the California Driver’s Manual to induce sleep, or purchasing a cheat sheet.

Being a man of great integrity, I opted for the cheat sheet. For $9.95, I got answers to the most frequently asked questions on the DMV test. I don’t know who put it together, but I think I went to high school with the guy.

So, there I was, doing some last-minute studying of my cheat sheet when an old man my age sat down next to me and pulled out his cheat sheet.

This was his second attempt. He only had one more shot left. If he failed that, he would have to come up with another $35 for three more attempts. His wife, who had been taking him for a month, was in the parking lot praying the Rosary.

My number appeared on the board and I wished him luck, thinking that perhaps I had relied too much on this cheat sheet. I approached the guy in window 7 and he told me to read the top line of the wall chart, so I did.

“No, the top line,” he said, after I finished. Then I read it again.

“No, the top line.”

Finally, he turned and looked at the chart, realizing he was reading the wrong answer sheet.

“It will be $35,” he said, without missing a beat. The boy was a professional.

He sent me across the room to see the woman taking mugshots. Has anyone ever taken a photo of their driver’s license and then said, “Wow, I look great”?