Directionally challenged

Or, as my mother has been known to utter, “rigting befok”. That’s me in a nutshell. I can drive the same route dozens of times & STILL get lost! I am better if I’m in the car alone (or with the kids, but I have been known to ask them which way mom should go), the minute I have someone else in the car it’s like I lose part of my brain. I have to double check with them, even if I KNOW I’m probably right anyway. 

Needless to say it drives (no pun intended!)Hubby crazy. I’m never allowed to drive when he’s in the car unless I’m the designated sober driver.Or we’re going somewhere he knows I’m extremely familiar with. 

You’d think I’d have invested in a GPS thingy by now, but that would be admitting defeat!! So I usually resort to online maps…the one’s that include step by step driving instructions ‘coz who has time to try & figure out how to read the map??

On occasion, I ask Hubby for directions. He can practically get you anywhere…IF you can decipher the instructions. Today was one of those days. We were going out for lunch to a pub I have only been to once (Hubby drove that time of course) and we were going in separate vehicles as he was on-call, so I tentatively asked him to remind me exactly where we were going….

After he gaped at me disbelievingly (you’d think he’d be used to me by now!) he launched into a nonsensical garbled litany of words! Well, not really, but that’s always how directions sound to me. He must’ve seen me glaze over midway ‘coz he stopped & stared at me. I stared back blankly. Picture the scene. He then frustratingly asked me if I knew what he was saying. I should mention that Hubby isn’t the most patient of people & when I didn’t immediately answer him I could see the steam coming out his ears (insert sheepish grin). I quickly grabbed at the one word in his explanation that I was familiar with “well, I know where the rugby stadium is” Turns out he hadn’t even mentioned the stadium but the cricket grounds. Oops, but in my defence they are practically neighbours.

So he continued with “head towards the rugby grounds then, go left at the lights as if you were going to the Lake. At the small roundabout go right. Now you are behind the cricket grounds. At the roundabout where you have Seddon Road, King Street & Nawton Rd, take the 2nd exit. And the first right. Pub is at the end of that street” Typing it up now it sounds simple, but that’s ‘coz I have been there & back already and know what he means! But at that stage I said “yep,ok” and went off to process the info. Just before I left, I clarified with him “left, right, 2nd exit, right) and he launched into all sorts of other info! He mentioned a bakery I kind of know (and then only when I accidentally happen upon it!), and some little bridge I would cross if I kept the bakery on my left (the bakery is at a crossroads so it can be on my left if I was travelling in 2 different directions!)

At this point I conceded defeat & just ran inside to the computer to get clarification. Turns out all I had to do was turn left after the stadium, right at the roundabout & then right again. Easy! But because of all the other crap info he included in his monologue, I was totally confused.

Bless him, he always wants to make absolutely sure he doesn’t leave anything out. But for someone like me, less is more. I don’t need to know every kink in the road I may be travelling on, or the shape of a tree I may pass, or names of streets I’m not even going to notice. Whereas he notices everything on route & has an uncanny way of remembering it (yet ask him to remember someone’s name, I dare you!) When he asks me for directions (it does happen, just not very often) I’ll say something like “2nd right, follow the road until you reach such & such street, go left and you’ll find the number” He’ll look at me incredulously and want to know if he will have to go along the straight, or over the bridge, or past the tree shaped like a dragon or other such drivel I failed to notice the dozen times I travelled that way. I’ll ask if the bridge is on the road I said go straight on or whatever & if he answers yes, then I say “well then you’ll probably have to go over it”. (I try not to drip sarcasm but, I won’t lie, I’m usually unsuccessful.) I just don’t notice things if it’s not pertinent to the journey.

In my defence, I know that I’m not the only person who has been thrown when given directions by my wonderful Hubby. Listening to him give directions over the phone to someone cracks me up everytime! Ahhh, bless his cotton socks..

 

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