I Don't Do Directions. Or Math. Or Mornings.

This morning, after a whopping four and a half hours of sleep, I got up and headed to NIU. I needed to take an assessment test because I’ve applied for a job working with kids in a school. So I got up at 5:00 AM and headed to Dekalb.The only other people on the road at that early hour are the folks heading home from a night out drinking. And the occasional cow. To make the drive more challenging, it was super-foggy today and I couldn’t see more than a few yards ahead of me.


I drove the sixty miles to Dekalb and took the exit for Annie Glidden Rd. I drove for about a mile down the road and didn’t see any signs of the college campus. Of course, with all the fog, I could’ve driven in to the student center (literally) without seeing it. I started freaking out that I’d made a wrong turn, so I glanced at my Mapquest printout. It read, Merge onto S ANNIE GLIDDEN RD. I looked at the compass. I was going north. Oh great, I thought, I turned the wrong way onto Annie Glidden! I turned around and headed back toward the highway. When I reached the highway, I realized, too late, that Annie Glidden didn’t actually run south of the highway. I found myself forced to hop back on the highway either heading the way I’d come or heading closer to Iowa.  

Because I knew there wasn’t an exit for miles the way I’d come, I opted to head toward Iowa. Unfortunately, as I soon found out, there wasn’t an exit for sixteen miles heading toward Iowa either.
I looked at the clock, tried to calculate how long it would take me to reach the exit, turn around, head back, get lost again, find the campus, find the parking lot, get lost one more time, find the building where the test was taking place, and check in. I cried, knowing there was no way I’d be able to make it in time. I’d just gotten up at a stupidly early hour, driven across the country, and paid to register for this test for no reason. I called my mom, because she’s one of those people who purposely gets up that early, and asked her to pull up a map and direct me on how to get back.

Despite the fact I’d driven several miles out of my way thanks to my severe directional impediment, I actually made it to the test with 14 seconds to spare. I was the first person to complete the test, so I went back over the math section, hoping that sudden enlightenment would occur and I’d miraculously remember stuff I’d tuned out during my sophomore geometry class. After staring at the rectangle for five minutes, I came to the realization that I wasn’t going to suddenly remember how to find the area. I gave up and filled in a random oval on my answer sheet.

I moved to the next math question. Jim is lifting weights. He starts by lifting 15 pounds on day one. He lifts 17.5 pounds on day two.  He lifts 20 pounds on day three. If he continues increasing the amount of weight he lifts at the same rate each day, how many days will it take until he’s lifting 50 pounds?

I scanned the four possible answers, looking for the one that read, Who cares?  Jim will be totally buff and really, that’s all that matters. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a choice, so I did eeny meeny miney mo and picked an answer with a bunch of numbers, letters, and symbols in it because it looked all complicated and math-like.

Then, this afternoon, I drove Jackson about 45 minutes away so he could hang out with a friend of his. On the way back, Savannah begged me to stop at Sonic so she could get a limeade.  I passed the Sonic because of my previously discussed directional impediment.  No problem. I’ll just go to the one on the other side of the airport. I know how to get there. Piece of cake. 

Anyone care to take a guess what happened? Anyone? Give up? I’ll tell you. I drove to the airport. Not near the airport. Not next to the airport. I drove among the cabs and limos dropping passengers off at the terminals. Yeah. Brooklyn asked me if we were going somewhere. 

“Yeah, I’m just gonna park the car and we’ll hop a plane to Mexico,” I answered.

“Mexico!  Mexico! We’re going to Mexico!” she happily chanted.

I found my way out of the airport and headed toward Sonic. I was driving along and then, nothing. My car just stopped. Nothing. No way to steer. No restarting my car. Nothing. As I waited for a tow truck, I called Austin, who was at home, and told him to walk to his baseball game and I’d meet him there as soon as I could. He called me back a minute later, saying that his baseball bag was in my van.  Ugh. Savannah had to pee, Brooklyn was hungry, and I was hot and tired from driving all day, stressed about my van, how much the repairs will cost, the fact that I’ll be without a car until Monday at the earliest, and the fact that my son didn’t have his mitt, bat, helmet, or cleats for the game that was scheduled to start in a few minutes.

When the tow truck arrived, Savannah asked, “So, does this mean, I can’t get Sonic?” Brooklyn piped up and asked, “Are we still going to Mexico?”

After help from my friend Doreen and my parents, we managed to get everyone fed and to their games, where I sat in the freezing rain with my dad all night. And just because not enough crappish stuff had happened yet, I ended the day with this gem.  I twittered the following message:  At Lex’s game. It’s so cold, I can see my breast! It’s JUNE, for cryin out loud! That was immediately followed by:  Breath! BREATH! I can see my breath! Stupid iPhone!