Directions

For a variety of reasons that I still do not understand fully myself, my position at work has suddenly changed and I don't do exclusively emergencies anymore.  This is good and bad.  Good because I don't work solely with the acutely suicidal and/or homicidal and/or psychotic anymore. Bad because it involves me twice a week travelling to a different office.  This adds an additional half an hour to my commute, one way.

Those of you who know me in real life know that according to my sleep habits and patterns, I am an adolescent at heart.  If I could stay up until 2 or 3 AM and sleep till noon-ish, I would be super content.  I am not a morning person, to the point where Elizabeth used to tentatively approach me when she would younger and ask, "Mommy, have you had your coffee yet?"  I told Charles the first night I spent the night that I was not a morning person.  He just laughed the way he did the time I told him about my aversion to laundry.  The next morning he got out of bed to let his dog out, and I bit his head off:  "Why are you getting up?"  "To let the dog out."  "Oh...zzzzzz".

I mention the above because part of the reason I left my previous employer was due to the commute.  And also because it explains what I am about to reveal next.  It at least gives some kind of rationale for my actions.

I decided today to attempt to find a different way to this particular office.  I have to go through two small speed-traps towns and I was thinking that if I could find a back road to avoid this it might be quicker.

Now.  Let's just talk for a minute about what real-world talents I have.  I can open a screw top beer on a picnic table or counter edge.  I can tie shoes so they are less likely to come untied.   I can soften brown sugar once it has gone hard.

I cannot find my way out of a paper bag.  I have the navigational capabilities of a deaf drunk bat.  People like me are why GPS were invented.  To me, directions are similar to making gravy (another real world talent I lack.)  Why bother when I can open a can or make my older sister do it?  It is not like I do this that often.  Same with directions.  Why bother when I seldom go anyplace new and I can have a little nifty machine tell me in a pleasant female voice exactly what to do and when.

I have been to the city that this office is located in exactly four times.  Three were to the exact same place (my children's pediatrician's other office.).  I am not exactly familiar, is what I am trying to establish here.   Even typing this out, I am questioning what kind of logic made me think that it would be a good idea to try to find this alternative route with nothing but my iphone to lead me.  And since I still have not figured out the whole map app on my phone, it may as well have been paper directions.

I am that person who would drive around with the mapquest directions and accidentally hit the hobo on the side of the road as well as your dog too, all because I am trying to read and drive at the same time. I tend to multitask (five open...) and when you are going 55 MPH, eating yogurt is one thing but trying to read directions is another.  Figure in the GPS.  I am saving the hobo, and your little dog too. 

Saving hobos and dogs.  It's what your GPS can do for you.  Why am I not in advertising?