Directionaly Challenged Me

One thing Hubby knows about me for sure is that I have a lousy sense of direction.  I was out of the room when the orienteering genes were being given out.  Now when we walk somewhere together, he will say right now, now left, okay turn here, just as if he was leading the blind.  It's my own fault he feels he has to do this.  I should never have told him about the time I got lost in the washroom at Winner's.  In fairness to myself, if you've ever been in one, it is not exactly a room,  more like an area with no doors for entrance and exit something like a mini maze really. And I did not panic; I was clever enough to wait for someone else to leave and followed her.  Now what saves me from thinking that I really am old and losing it for sure is that this happened to me many years ago.

 If anything, I think I have gotten a bit better at directions since moving to Ottawa.  Getting around in the new communities has forced me to sharpen my directional wits in that regard.  Hubby will find that statement a hoot.

 When I first moved here, I spent Sundays when there was less traffic driving to the destinations I knew I wanted.  I kept file cards and wrote down all the directions...every single turn.  This system worked really well for me and gave me the confidence to get about on my own.

 I have also had to develop a method to help me remember where I park my car.  I used to lose a serious amount of time searching a large parking lot.  But now I have a rule; I always park as close to the cart corral on the left of the store as I can get. At least I know the aisle now to begin the search. It is great when 10 year old grandson is with me; he has an unerring sense of direction.  One of his first phrases he said to me as a tiny toddler was "not here" when I had gone in the wrong direction to a friends' and had to pull into an anonymous driveway to turn around.

I have a friend who I suspect is worse than I am at directions.  She was driving once when we made a turn that took us east and I was pleased with myself that I could see we were heading in the opposite direction from where we wanted to go.  I was too polite to speak up right away partly because she was so sure of her driving so I assumed she knew of a turn-off that would set us right, but no.  That time we were driving for about forty minutes before we could turn around and head home.

Which brings me to another rule I have for driving here.  I try to keep the gas tank full.  These country roads are long and gas stations are far apart; it's just one less thing for a worry wart like me to worry about.