Some people are mentally challenged. Others are physically challenged. Folks like me are vertically challenged (that means I’m short). Then there are those who are directionally challenged. These people can potentially get lost on their way home from the garage.
My mom, husband, and both daughters fall into this last category. To those of us who have pretty decent senses of direction, just hearing their stories is fairly entertaining.
My hubby and I like to go to this particular restaurant in Houston. But if I weren’t in the car with him, I’m telling you … he’d never be able to find it. Now keep in mind we’ve been going there for a very long time, and the restaurant is still in the same spot it has always been. Hasn’t moved an inch. But every time we home in on it, he swears he needs to turn one way when the restaurant is the other way. I just have to smile and shake my head. The poor dear.
I remember when I was little and my mom was taking me to visit one of my friends who had moved away, about an hour north of where we lived. I was getting antsy and kept asking, “When are we gonna be there?!”
To which she’d answer calmly, “It shouldn’t be long now.”
It seemed like we went on forever. I noticed my mom mumbling something to herself, and then she began to get nervous. “We should have been there by now,” she whispered, biting her lower lip.
Well, to make a long story short, we were heading towards San Antonio instead of Dallas. The one-hour trip turned into three, and she was in tears by the time we got there.
Maybe that’s why I’m so good at directions. If I weren’t, the family might be wandering around the New Mexico desert or something.
But my daughters are by far the worst.
My oldest daughter and a friend took off together one evening … there were supposed to meet a group at a particular restaurant/club in Houston. Now, this is a really scary thing for a mom who knows her daughter can’t find the back of her hand.
But she was old enough to learn these things, so I had to bite my lip. I mean, I wasn’t always going to be in the front seat with her, telling her every turn to take. So I gave her explicit directions, got out maps, and showed her exactly how to get there. I made sure she had her cell phone, charged and ready. But deep down, I knew it would be a miracle if she made it there on the first try.
Sure enough, the phone rang. She was in the right general area and had even seen the building from a distance. But somehow with the one-way streets and traffic, she had gotten turned around. I got out my map, located where she was, and tried to get her pointed in the right direction.
About two hours later, the phone rang again. I figured they were leaving and needed help getting out of Houston. No! She was still lost from the first time! Well, sort of. They had finally found the club, but decided it was sort of scary looking, or at least the people they saw going into it were scary looking. So, they went to Plan B, called their friends, and decided to meet up somewhere else.
But she got lost.
“Where are you now?” I asked.
“I don’t know. On a freeway. I think we passed an airport a little while ago,” she replied.
Airport? Good golly. This couldn’t be good. “Tell me what the road signs say,” I told her, afraid of what the answer might be.
“It says ‘Galveston – 10 miles.” She was 50 miles off course. What can I say?
She finally made it home. She was tired, but safe. I mean, they had been driving in circles for, like, five hours.
She is now the poster child for DCPA … the “Directionally Challenged Persons of America”.
