I hate getting lost. When my kids were small, they’d never let me forget it if I turned down a wrong street. Especially if I managed to somehow circle around and drive down the same street — again, often from the opposite direction. While I was looking around trying to remember where a particular place was, one of my young jokers would say, “Hey! I know this place. We’ve been lost here before!” *snork*

Hubby was no better. No matter how often he drove them to the same friends’ houses, or to Choi Kwon Doh practice, choir rehearsal, or any other place they regularly went he’d miss turns or go the wrong way. The kids would tease him, “Dad, we’re lost here again.”  

For years, we were both afflicted with Cantfindit Syndrome, but back then, we simply didn’t have the awareness to recognize the signs. We took the usual precautions like getting a map (always out of date by the time it was printed due to the constant building and renaming of streets) and of course, we would call for directions. Now, let me pause here and put this kindly to those of you who give directions to people like us. First, we are really not morons. It’s congenital. Some of us come into the world backward and spend the rest of our lives like that. Cantfindit Syndrome turns someone who can take apart the most complicated piece of equipment, fix it, reassemble it, and still be capable of turning a six block trip into a frenzy of steering-wheel bashing, red-in-the-face, screaming monster “Thriller” try-out-wannabe maniacs without all the dancing — and no Michael Jackson music to enjoy it by. Second, no matter how many times you assure us that we “can’t miss it,” — we will. It’s in our genes.

Back when hubby and I had that folding green stuff that you put in a wallet… what was that called? It seems to me it was “M” something. Muh…Mun… oh, I remember! Money! Gosh, it’s been so long since I’ve seen it — I even had the plastic kind that comes in those cute little cards… But I digress.

Back then, in the pre-economy-steps-on-a-banana-peel-days, we bought a GPS for our car because the only fights we ever have (well… almost) were we went somewhere together outside our normal one or two mile radius. For five years, we worked in the same building, and after mastering the tricky backwoods twists and turns (we are Rural with a capital Rur) we would only yell at each other when we were someplace we’ve never been before and couldn’t figure out how to get where we were supposed to be. Why is it that two normal *cough* sane *cough* adults think that screaming at each other from opposite sides of the car will help either of them find a place quicker? It’s that dreaded Cantfindit Syndrome again, I tell you. It’s insidious. I think it’s akin to that syndrome where you go to another room and Cantfigureoutwhy. That’s even scarier in a way because it starts happening right in your own house!

 
 I’d been called for Federal Jury Duty downtown. That alone gets your knees knocking and your palms sweating. I managed a miracle and found it, got into the pay-for-parking lot. The clerk in the judicial building validated my ticket and I spent the next five hours waiting only to be told to go home because I wasn’t needed. The rest of the week, I only had to call in to see if my number was chosen, but it never was. Good thing for me. That first day, I’d had good directions on how to get there.

 

Capitol Building Atlanta Georgia

No one told me how to get out. Because the street I came in was one way, I had to pull out and turn to the right instead. I figured since I was only a block off the freeway, all I had to do was make a left turn at the next corner, then a left at the following corner, and I should be back at the entrance ramp. Oh, how naïve I was! I forgot for a moment this was Atlanta, the city that invented the phrase “just-because-it-makes-sense-don’t-mean-it’s-so.” The next block was also one way – going the wrong way. So I went to the next block. Still wrong. By now, I’ve driven two blocks in rush hour traffic and because I’m not keeping up with all the thrill-seeker drivers downtown, people are starting to honk. And I’m getting nervous. Remember I said I’d been there only five hours – which made it about 2pm; I forgot to mention it’s rush hour from 5am on day one through 1am on day two in downtown, and then miraculously everyone disappears, the buses stop running, the cops cruise slowly through the area, and it’s like a normal town anywhere, except with canyons for streets and more one-way signs than you’ve ever seen in your life.

Let me give you a first-hand scenario of driving in downtown Atlanta without a GPS. The beautiful gold-domed Capitol Building has a lady holding aloft a… a… I have no idea! I was too busy reading street signs to get more than a glimpse. It could have been anything from a peach pie to a hammer and I wouldn’t have noticed. Just a female symbol with one hand in the air holding … an object. No matter what side of the building you face, you still can’t tell. Now, picture driving around downtown trying to keep an eye on traffic, pedestrians who have no idea what a traffic light or crosswalk is for, and the local buses and taxis swooping in and out in front of you. Nuff said. 

I spent an hour trying to figure out which way I had to go to get back to the freeway. I literally saw the lady on the capitol building from every single side. I still have no idea what my route was, and every time I saw a cop, he or she was writing a ticket for someone who looked dangerous enough to commandeer my car and drive off with it, so I kept going. Every time I glanced up at the capitol building, there was that woman from a different angle again. Suddenly I spied a sign reading, “I-75 Exit next left.” Joy filled my heart. I felt the way a rat must when he runs a maze and finally finds the cheese. The exit came up quickly and I zoomed down it. About one car length in I noticed a sign that read “HOV Lane only.”

Now, I’m sorry, but anagrams escape me, so I can’t remember exactly what HOV stands for, but I did know you had to have more than one occupant in your car or you’d get a ticket. People have dressed up their dogs and had them ride in the front seat, used blow-up dolls (I kid you not), and one guy had a cardboard cutout of Spock which he duct-taped to the front seat. I swear I couldn’t make this stuff up. So as I’m gaining speed going down this long curving ramp so I can merge into what I can see is heavy traffic, I’m also looking in the rear view mirror for cops. So far, so good. Then I see him. Right at the bottom, waiting like a fly trap for a stupid fly, and he’s already turned on his lights. I’m thinking about the fact that I’d served jury duty and maybe he’d left me off … when it dawns on me, he’s already pulled someone over! Fast as I could without leaving a jet trail, I sped past him and into traffic. My heart pounded for at least two miles down the road, even though I’d immediately moved to the right and out of the special more-than-one-occupant lane.

GPS has saved my sanity more times than I’d care to admit. I no longer have to hear “We’ve been lost here before,” and hubby and I haven’t screamed at each other in the car since we bought it. Now we scream at the GPS unit. “You moron! How can I turn right when the sign says ‘Road Closed!’” To which it calmly responds, “Recalculating. At your earliest convenience, make a U-turn and return to the intersection.” Technology. Ain’t it grand?