I cannot remember street names. I also have a bad problem with direction and measurements, so you can’t even tell me “Go east for four miles, then turn left and go…”
We went out to eat last Friday for our FIVE YEAR! anniversary at our favorite Italian restaurant, which is in a larger city nearby. It takes us about thirty to forty minutes to get there from our house. The husband was tired, but he drove on the way there. While we were eating, I asked him if he wanted me to drive home.
“Can you even find your way home?” he asked. He asked this because once when I was driving to our favorite Mexican restaurant, which we’ve been to hundreds of times, I missed my turn. Instead of turning around at the next block or next parking lot I got to, I kept driving. Finally, the husband asked, “Where are you going?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” I cried. He could not stop laughing at this. My grip on the steering wheel tightened and I was trying not to cry and I still wasn’t turning around and he kept laughing. I pulled into the parking lot at a grocery store, said “I’m not driving anymore!” and made him switch seats with me.
So after that ONE time, I’ve lost all credibility for being able to find my way around town.
“Yes, I can find my way home,” I told him. “I turn right out of the parking lot, then go all the way down until I get to the big intersection and turn left.”
“The big intersection?” he asked, looking at me over his plate of meat tortellini. (I had meatless fettucini with marinara sauce.) “Is that the official name?”
“I can’t remember what it’s called!” I insisted. “It’s the big intersection. Of course, there are SEVERAL big intersections between here and there, but I know which one I’m talking about.”
“So if you got into an accident right there and called 911, you’d tell them you were at ‘the big intersection’?”
“No, I’d give them more details. Like, ‘There are a lot of cars going by. There’s a car dealer over there.’”
Like they’d really know where I was if I just said “big intersection.” I have to at least tell them what kind of tree I’m standing near.