The one thing in the world that I hate more than just about anything else is being lost. I also happen to get lost with startling frequency.
My sense of direction is so hideous that, for a while, my approach was simply to head in the opposite direction of whatever way I thought was correct. If I thought I should make a right turn, I actually forced myself to make a left. Then I started to overanalyze it. “I think I should turn right, which probably means that left is correct, but since I now think that left is probably correct, that probably means I should go right.” Wrong.
For Christmas this year, I gave myself a Garmin, an amazing little GPS system for my car. Since then, the Garmin has been out of my car on two occasions and I managed to get lost both times. The first time, I brought the Garmin into my office to show it off to my co-workers, left it on my desk, headed to an off-site meeting, and promptly got lost. The second time, I let my wife borrow the Garmin, headed to dinner with a friend, and, again, got lost. Neither the off-site meeting nor the dinner were in out-of-the-way locations, by the way, but it really doesn’t matter. Near, far, the end result is almost always the same.
A few months ago, for example, I drove about 50 miles in the wrong direction, convinced with every fiber of my being that the NJ Turnpike is the same thing as I-95 — this despite the fact that I had printed directions in hand clearly telling me otherwise. I even have found myself trying to outthink the Garmin. “Turn right? What are you, crazy?” (They have yet to come out with a Garmin smart enough to respond, “Just turn, asshole.” All in good time.)
My deep hatred for being lost stems from an even deeper desire to be in control of every situation I find myself in. Some people can laugh off being lost, or even treat it as a little adventure. “Is that the Canadian border? Neat!” I, on the other hand, literally can feel my heart begin to race and my body temperature start to rise the moment I sense that I am lost or, more broadly stated, the moment I feel things starting to slip from my control. (I drove the last few blocks to the dinner mentioned above with my window all the way down even though it was about 30 degrees outside that night.)
A good sense of direction is something you either have or you don’t. I don’t, and that’s pretty much the end of that. What am I supposed to do, sit around and study maps?
Tags: garmin, getting lost
January 15, 2008 at 9:11 pm |
What is a “oone” thing?
Dude, I get lost like this as well. And I *do* study maps. Getting you a compass in March for your birthday.
November 10, 2008 at 4:17 am |
[...] case of poison ivy and got a last-minute appointment with a poison ivy specialist. I headed in the wrong direction, of course, and was desperately trying to make up for lost time, but squandered it royally by being [...]