Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2011

I am not one for public scenes. However, at Samezu Drivers Licence Center, an antiquated cesspit of hate, I have caused a few. Nonetheless, after my latest debacle, I’m convinced that they’re the problem—not me.

Scene 1: A new arrival in Japan applying for a driver’s license and jumping through all the hoops. Alien registration card? Check. Re-entry permit? Previous, long-gone passport? Hmm… I hit a hurdle on that one. This was to prove I had lived in the country in which my licence was initially issued for a period of 90 days.

Passports these days don’t always get stamped, but try telling that to the chaps at Samezu. When my officer drew a line diagram (he even used a ruler) that started in 1990 and ended in 2003, and asked me to mark the exact dates of my entry and re-entry into Australia, I lost it through sheer frustration.

As I was blubbing on the blue vinyl bench seats a kindly American women bravely asked if I was okay, to which I shrieked “they won’t believe me!”

Eventually, another officer came across and told me, “we believe you.” I was sent off to have my tear-streaked, rabbit-in-the-headlights photo taken. Done.

Scene 2: Years later. Licence renewal. Having visited the various upstairs-downstairs windows for payment, eye test, photograph (smiling and happy!), I was then sent off for a two-hour driver safety lecture to amend my errant driving habits. No matter that I had my one-year-old daughter with me.

I sat Daisy on the classroom floor and pulled out a few toys—all of which made annoying beeping and squeaking noises. She cried, we were booted out, and that’s it, one might have thought. But no, we had to sit outside the classroom for the entire duration, upon which my attendance card was stamped and we were good to go. I walked to my car.

A cop car awaited me with flashing lights and a crowd of people gathered around, including the car park owner and the bloke whose spot I’d inadvertently snaffled. The tow truck was en route.

Scene 3: March 2011. Post-earthquake and my licence had expired. I packed what are now two kids into the car, and off we went for another round. As in Scene 2, we were packed off upstairs for a two-hour lecture.

This time I dug my heels in. It was an emotional time, having survived the quake and coming to terms with the ongoing nuclear crisis. I was trying to do the right thing. I wanted to be a legal, law-abiding citizen in this wonderful city, but I would not sit in a classroom with two children under the age of four for a lecture I don’t understand.

Upon my tearful, slightly hysterical refusal to sit through the lecture, the three of us were ferried around the building, upstairs and downstairs, until I was presented to a hate-filled officer who screamed at me, “WHY ARE YOU CRYING?”

When I argued the pointless nature of the lecture, he told me I could come back later—but no licence.

“I’m driving out of your car park right now with my two kids in the back. You can arrest me out the front if you want,” I sobbed, and we were gone.

After two months of unlicensed driving, I found the strength to return—sans les enfants. I suffered the two-hour lecture and achieved legality.

Having been granted the use of an informative English-language handbook, I now know it’s advisable to don a yellow raincoat when negotiating a footpath as a pedestrian during inclement weather.

There was even a line diagram to prove it.