Roads? Where I'm Going I Don't Need Roads.

Yesterday I went back to the future. I tried to get the wireless connection working on my ancient laptop, but couldn't, so I took it to the local Apple dealer instead.

The University of Illinois was brimming with activity this past weekend. Apparently classes begin Monday and students were filling the streets in droves as they moved into their new quarters. I didn't know where the campus Apple dealer was located and neither did all the PC owners I asked, so I drove around and around all of the one-way streets trying to find it.

After hearing that even laptops can become extinct unless you spend more money to fix them than it would cost to purchase a new laptop, I left the parking lot that was closest to the Apple center. I needed to turn right, but I wasn't allowed to turn right. Right would have taken me directly home. Instead I kept driving left down one-way streets until it got to the point where I felt I was spiraling downward into the bowels of Champaign, Illinois.

Yes, I know those two words – bowels and Champaign – clearly do not belong in the same sentence, but you have to understand how annoying it is to drive and drive and not be able to get to where you need to be. Very frustrating.

But, optimist that I am, I ventured onward. Then suddenly, with absolutely no idea how I arrived on what looked to be a bicycle path, I saw students staring at me as they walked around my car, oblivious to the fact that I was pretending to be "Security" for the campus. Finally I saw a road that took me (again) in the opposite direction. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me," I said sympathetically to myself.

All the while I'm thinking – the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and I am creating a web of non-intersecting tangents that are taking me further and further away from my destination. It was like running in quicksand. All I wanted to do was find some familiar territory.

It was like the time I went to visit the man who would one day become my ex-husband. On my way to visit him before we got married, I drove through a neighborhood that kept bringing me back to the same street corner. I should have taken it as a sign, but I didn't. And every time I arrived there, I looked around and thought, "How does this keep happening?"

I think, after having had numerous years in which to ponder this mystery, that I have some defective gene that pulls me in the wrong direction. Please see my previous post, Driving Dilemmas, for more proof that I do indeed have this as yet undiscovered defective gene.

(Photo is from IMBD - Internet Movie Data Base – a clip from the movie, Back To The Future, starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd)

Driving & Other Dilemmas - Bloopers & Mistakes

Have you ever put a key into a lock that didn’t work? One of my daughters and I were discussing the many times we’ve encountered just that problem. Sometimes it’s with cars (as when we attempt to force our keys into what turns out to be somebody else’s car), and sometimes it happens with houses.

One year I moved into an apartment complex with numerous buildings that all looked exactly alike. A friend and I had gone out for a couple of drinks (hmm, come to think of it, that might have contributed to the problem), and she let me off at my new apartment.

“I’ll stay here until I see the door open,” she offered as a measure of protection (I have always had amazing friends). She watched me climb the stairs, walk down the long outdoor hallway, stand before my door, and fidget with the lock.

After numerous attempts I looked over at her and saw her raise both palms upward and shrug her shoulders. I did the same. After more attempts, I walked down the long hallway, down the steps, and right back into her car.

“What do you want to do?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I thought out loud. “Maybe my key isn’t working.”

Turns out I lived one building to the west.

My daughter’s favorite driving story is about the time she and a couple of friends were driving one friend home after a party. They pulled into the driveway and when Sema didn’t open the door, they said, “Sema, you’re home – get out!”

“But this isn’t my house,” she argued.

“YES! It is, now open the door.” Reluctantly Sema left the car and walked up to the front door where she found herself standing face to face with her next-door neighbor at 2 o’clock in the morning, saying the only thing she could think to say, “Have you seen my brother?”

But the highlight of my driving experiences is one of those déjà vu moments that reminded me of the time I was taking driver’s ed in high school. The instructor and two other students were male. I was the only female.

In those days, wheels didn’t return to their original position, so when I made a right turn, I ended up speeding through a field directly into the path of a house. Every time the instructor yelled, “BRAKES! BRAKES!” I accelerated more and more. When I saw the whites of the eyes of the family seated at their breakfast table staring at me with mouths agape, something snapped inside me and I slammed on the breaks just in time to see the two other students cowering in embarrassment on the floor of the back seat.

And so here I was, decades later, working for a home party company heading into the country to find – from the driving directions that included no street names – landmarks such as poles, statues, and baskets. I was never very good at seeing in the dark, and this brand new street had no lights yet. I had to continuously vacate my car and walk up to each house just to locate the address.

Finally, I thought I had it figured out and I pulled my car directly in front of what I thought would be the correct house. For reasons I couldn’t understand, I saw the father wrap his arms around his children and rush them into the house. When I came to a stop, I noticed the circular driveway in front of me running to my left and to my right. Too bad I didn’t see it before I drove across their newly landscaped lawn.

(photo of Nicolas Cage – "this isn't my house" in The Family Man is from IMDB – Internet Movie Data Base)