I have no sense of direction. I mean, NONE. I barely know which way is up; don't ask me where North is - I seriously have no idea. Even when the sun is setting, I can't find West. Seriously. My dad, on the other hand, could be dropped blindfolded into the middle of Omaha and find his way home. I, genes not withstanding, always park in the same spot at the grocery store so I don't lose my car.
I lived in the same house from the time I was nine months old until I left for college and I went to the same campus 7th-12th grades and I taught at that same high school for 5 years. I knew my way around the campus. I could tell you where any classroom was, the football field, the gym, the office, whatever. My directions to you would include words like "left", "right", "just past the...". Never "North" or "East". So one day in the middle of teaching the finer points of Biology to disinterested 16-year-olds, they were relieved to hear we were having a fire drill. Relieved is probably an understatement - perhaps estatic would better sum up their emotions. This was a drill as in practice, not as in fire alarm going off. This drill consisted of an automaton, oblivious to the entertainment needs of high school students, bullet-listing the places EACH teacher's class needed to report to once THEY WERE RELEASED, NOT RIGHT NOW. My class was to report to the goalpost at the North end of the football field. As was earlier mentioned, I could conduct a mistake-free tour of my campus. However, you can imagine my direction-impaired brain glitching at the mention of "North". Ah, I have an ace in the hole. Un-glitch. The interstate runs parallel to the football field. I know, because my father who has had to give me directions countless times (with a panicked phone call like "Dad, I'm at the corner of umm... Elm and umm... I think that says Patterson. I think I might be in Hemet. How do I get home?") told me that even interstates run East and West and odd interstates run North and South. This particular interstate is 8. Oh crap, that's an even interstate (let me check my math... yeah, evenly divisible by 2, dang, it's even) and that means there can't be a goalpost at the North end. Glitch. I am not a math teacher, but I do know parallel and across the cow pasture that surrounds our football field on three sides (yes, that makes us a peninsula in the middle of cow patties) is the interstate I have driven 3 million times. I know my house growing up is in East County and that I turned right to get on the freeway, so right must be East. Therefore, left, even I can figure out, is West. So how can my parallel-to-the-interstate football field have a
goalpost at the North end?? Double-glitch.
All of this is running through my brain at a fevered pitch as I am trying to keep 10th graders from stampeding over me like so many elephants. They apparently know North, or at least Exit. I have to wonder, would I care where the North goalpost was if the building were really on fire? Wouldn't we all just trample over the top of each other without me first taking out my handy compass, everyone pausing politely for the teacher (as always) to determine which end of the football field was (I think haphazardly labeled) North, and following in a silent single file line to the chalked-off North end zone? But, I digress. This was just a drill - no actual flames were sighted during this broadcast. So, I did what I do in the case of my father not being home - follow someone who looks like they know where they're going. In this instance, the teacher across the hall. He has no classroom control, but he can tell North from his elbow, because he is not stopping to consult a map on his way out the door. I always thought classroom control trumped actual knowledge, but in this case, not so much. His sloths are meandering behind him in a quadruple-file wave. My little darlings know from single file, and are fortunately following me following him, who I hope does not turn to me to ask for directions to the football field. We make it to the field and back again (apparently my classroom is West of the football field - who knew?)
So I call my dad when I get home that night, confused and a little miffed, as I generally am when people in charge mess things up, wondering why the automaton referred to the North goalpost, when the (even, hence East-West) interstate runs parallel, for crying out loud, to the football field on the campus that I have been to every day for ELEVEN years (not in a row, but eleven years, nonetheless).
And my dad, in his patient, stifling-laughter, she's-lost-again voice, says after a long pause, "Didn't you ever notice the freeway turns about a half mile before the school and runs North-South for about 2 miles to get around the MOUNTAIN there?"
No, dad, sorry to say, I, in the billion times I have ridden in your car and driven in my own car on that stretch of freeway, have never noticed the 90 degree turn and the subsequent 2 miles of North-South driving, nor the next 90 degree turn to return my vehicle to the originally intended East-West route. The only thing I got from you, genetically, is my eye color and obviously no ability whatsoever to tell which direction those eyes are facing.
