Adventures In Direction

I got lost twice within a couple of hours trying to get from my apartment to point A and from point A to point B. I am direction challenged to the point of being handicapped but this time it was not me. I called the woman I was supposed to meet at point A and asked for directions but she handed the phone to her husband right away.

Everything heads south from this point. I scribble down what he tells me – interestingly there are more landmark references than there are directions. I thought that was a woman thing. When I review what I have scribbled it reads like “Keep going until you see a church, then after a while, there will be a road on the left that forks in about a mile. Take the left branch and keep going. Turn left and one stop light and right at the next ..” after several more contortions left-right, right-right, right-left I should see a house with a porch. That is my destination. Did not sound promising but I trusted the man to know the way to his own home.

So off we go, J and I to point A with the trusty directions on the passenger seat. Following them to the letter, I end up in the midst of farms dotted with placid bovines and equines. I tell myself the odds of a desi living on a farm are slim to none and call the woman from someone’s driveway.

She is ready to defer to hubby for directions once again but I beg her to desist and stay with me on the phone and guide me turn by turn. I trace my way back to the main intersection and eventually reach the “big house with a porch” . Like me she is not able to get her bearings straight with respect to left on right relative to where I am coming from but it is no big deal really - she is still able to navigate me.

You would think after this first experience I would know better than to trust her man’s directions but then that would make me a smart and prudent person which I most decidedly am not. After we are done and ready to head out to point B, I ask for directions again. She begins but her husband takes over and confuses me with a couple of gratuitous u-turns which he tells me are absolutely necessary to make it to point B on time for my appointment there. Someone there is driving me and J to a point C about an hour from point B and I don’t have the least idea where that is or how to get there. Did I mention J had to perform in a music recital with a group of other kids at point C and had been practicing for a couple of weeks ?

I head out from point A and after the two u-turns, I am completely discombobulated. Seeing me grow increasingly agitated J advises sagely from her car-seat “Mommy, you should head home and start from there so you won’t get lost again”. But I pay no attention to the ramblings of a mere six year old. What does she know about driving directions anyways. Instead I make some more u-turns and find myself in the exact opposite end of town from where point B is.

Glancing at the watch I panic. I have all of five minutes for a fifteen minute drive. I go twenty miles over speed limit through a residential area to make up for lost time. I figure if I get to keep my license this afternoon, there is no way J will miss her recital. I enter the enclave where point B is just in time to see my ride gesticulating furiously from inside her car. She is on her way out to point C. I park wherever I can, grab J and my belongings and make a dash for her car. We make it to point C as planned without any further misadventures along the way. I promise J that I will never again ignore her two cents in matters relating to driving directions.