The light flickered from green to yellow. Limbo, as many of us fondly consider it. The awkward grey area between being cautious and being quick. But as the unseen timer ticked slowly down to zero, so did the electronic speed gauge of the 2023 Chrysler Pacifica as it rolled to a perfect stop an inch away from the white line.

“Why the hell did you do that for?” Dusty Sanchez, a road examiner at the Boston RMV, sneered at the sixteen-year-old girl behind the wheel next to him. 

It was bad enough when she stopped one hundred feet behind the school bus without even attempting to maneuver around it. Or when she used her turn signal to pass safely over into the left-most lane of the highway to let the faster drivers pass. OR when she stopped at the crosswalk to let an ENTIRE group of sightseeing senior citizens safely cross the street, but now? She’s not even going to try and beat the light? 

Dusty was going to be forced to issue her a Massachusetts driver’s license, which isn’t uncommon for him, as there hasn’t been a single student in his past sixty-two years of employment that he hasn’t passed, but this young girl, Grace Stanley, was about to be the first person to pass with flying colors. No fudged scores, dented bumpers, or twenty-dollar bills slid discreetly into Dusty’s wallet. Grace was a Bostonian blessed with an unusual gift. Grace knew how to drive.

While the registry begrudgingly granted Grace the great privilege of driving, the City of Boston had its suspicions. First, there was the fact that the birth certificate Grace submitted to the RMV to prove her citizenship stated that she was, in fact, born in Boston in 2009. Second, there was the fact that despite being a native Bostonian, Grace was fully capable of operating a car without causing ANY collisions, traffic violations, or vehicular homicides. Something wasn’t adding up here, and to make matters worse, she had a working knowledge of left and right, with an 87% chance of successfully differentiating between the two directions when tested. However, Grace claimed that the only reason it wasn’t 100% was because the tester got it wrong at times, but who knows?

These facts alone have led to a thorough examination of Grace’s personal history, with one city councilman claiming that her birth certificate had been faked. 

“Look,” Councilman John Long Slivers spoke with a pompous attitude. “I’m not usually one to subject a child to rigorous background checks, government scrutiny, and a temporary confinement at a guarded facility that may or may not be a prison, but something’s out of sorts here and we feel the need to keep an eye on her until we can, well… sort it out.” 

According to Councilman Slivers, the concern of Grace potentially being of non-Boston origin wasn’t initially one of dire importance until they discovered a frightening result on a high school aptitude test that determined she would make for a good teacher. This, coupled with her unnatural ability to drive in accordance with the law, has fueled the City Government’s fear that one day, Grace could open her own driver’s education school and pass on her skills to the young generations. While a future Boston where people know how to drive may not sound like a bad thing at face value, it runs the risk of tearing the very fabric of this city apart. 

“We’re Bostonians!” Shouted a passionate Slivers over a Zoom call. “We don’t know how to drive! WE DON’T DO THAT! Why do you think we made it so difficult and expensive to park in the city? For fun? We don’t want you to drive! Please! For the love of everything good in the world! DON’T DRIVE! YOU CAN’T DO THAT!”

More than that, Slivers suggested that a large portion of the Massachusetts economy is apparently built upon residents not knowing how to drive or properly care for their vehicles, and that the auto body repair industry is what keeps Boston from “sinking into the dirty water.” Personally, I doubt this fact, as I’ve always made sure to perform routine maintenance on my car. Just last week, I inserted three bottles of 500mg fish oil into the gas tank to keep her running smoothly. 

An attempt to reach Grace at the state prison was made, but unfortunately, the facility was nestled between a complicated array of four-way stops and roundabouts, and it was simply impossible to get there without the honking of many horns, the crying of many tears, and at least three deaths, two of them mine. 

Sadly for Grace, after weeks of waiting, Slivers and the rest of the council determined—by way of speculative science—that despite her Boston origin, a rogue mutation in her DNA, potentially caused by a free radical from space, was responsible for her perfect driving exam score, and that, for the benefit of the commonwealth, it would be better for everyone if she just went away forever and never came back. 

Provided nothing but the clothes on her back and the keys to the Pacifica she was given the license to operate, Grace set off for a new life in a new state. Maybe New Hampshire? Maybe Maine? She had all the roads in America to call home now. Well, at least she did. Unfortunately, Grace was t-boned before she even made it out of Mass by a man driving an F-150 that got confused as to “what the hell a yield sign even is!” 

While the only road Grace faces now is a long one to recovery, Dusty Sanchez was reportedly okay, having only suffered minor scrapes and bruises in the crash. His truck, on the other hand? It was completely totaled, but this wasn’t uncommon for Dusty, as he typically needs to purchase a new vehicle every other year, and while that might seem like a waste of money, well, it is. But, needless to say, the car dealers are making a killing, and the Massachusetts economy continues to be fueled by our inability to properly drive. 

So, the next time you rear-end a car at a traffic light, instead of getting mad and saying things that hopefully aren’t being recorded on camera, feel proud that you’re doing your part as a true Bostonian.