My almost total absence of sense of direction is a standing joke in my house. It is a wonder I can get from the bedroom to the bathroom in the middle of the night without getting lost. If I don’t have an able navigator in the car beside me on a trip, the destination I have in mind is only a pipe dream.
However, I outdid myself a couple of weeks ago when I managed to get lost behind my own house. One street over from our home and almost directly behind us is a Dairy Queen ice cream hut. We go through the drivethrough there from time to time and have for years. We access it by way of a laneway off the street which runs behind the building and out the other side. Simple. So this day I pulled into this laneway to get quite a shock. There, blocking my entrance, was a new garden shed, right in the middle of the path. There was absolutely no way to get around it with a car.
“Wow,” I exclaimed. “Looks like they’ve cut off the drivethrough.” I followed that up with a few well-chosen expletives deleted, as I recall.
My son had a better explanation. “Dad, you’re in the wrong driveway.” Well, waduhuno? I was. I had entered the driveway into the laundromat, instead of the Dairy Queen. In my defence, I have lived in this neighbourhood for only 26 years and am still getting to know my way around.
Nevertheless, I am crossing “tour guide” off my possible career moves list.
©2012 Jim Hagarty
