I always wanted to be in a cowboy movie. Now, I can’t sing and I can’t act much, but I would be perfect for the old geezer who stands at the crossroads and tells the hero that they went “thataway”. I have a great deal of experience in that type of thing as The Blonde in the house is one of the directionally confused. It is one of my husbandry responsibilities to see that she gets to her destination. I also found that giving directions to a location is not sufficient. I must also give directions back.
As an example, one fine day I gave her directions to Harbor Hills. She followed them faithfully and arrived in good order. However coming back was not so good as I had not supplied her with the return route. What happened, of course was that she took a turn somewhere and spent a good period of time wandering through the wilds of Lake County. Finally, she saw a farmer and ran across the field to ask him how to get back to familiar territory. That worked and she arrived back home, although rather later than I had expected.
Just the other day, I gave her some directions which worked part of the way. However, not all the way so she called me on the phone. When the phone was answered, she declared “I’m lost!” The male voice answered “that’s too bad”. No it was not me acting like a husband. She had obviously dialed wrong.
I eventually got the “I’m lost” call. She ultimately got to her appointed location – with some help from a lady on the scene. Coming back she did find Morse Avenue but was not certain that she was going in the right direction.
In due course, she saw a familiar building and knew she was headed correctly. I have told her to look at the compass on the mirror and if she is coming home, it should say “S”. However, directionally challenged people do not think of things like that when they are concentrating on where the heck they are.
I used to chide her because every time we would come out of a building she would turn left no matter which way we should be going. After lots of chiding,
she now will turn right – even if it is not the direction we should be headed.
An incident that we all recall occurred when we lived in New Jersey. She hopped in the car and went to collect our son who was at a friend’s. Time passed – lots of time – so I finally called the friend’s house and they said that she had not arrived. Now I was really worried. I was ready to call the police, when the door slammed and The Blonde came in severely ticked off. What had happened was that just before she got to the friend’s house there had been an accident. The police directed her down a ramp which put her on a four lane road. She went a couple of cities down before she finally got off and found someone to direct her back. She did not think much of the police. I had to go and retrieve our son.
To go back to my original point, it is obvious that most of the cowboy heroes are directionally challenged or they would not need someone to tell them that they went “thataway”. With my background, I am certain that any movie producer would snap me up for the role.
I just hope that I get to wear a white hat. Good guy, you know!
Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com