Lost

“If you’re following me, you’re lost too.” – phrase read off the bumper sticker on an SUV. I almost followed it after reading those words.

Everyone gets lost once in a while, and some are lost more often than not. We’ve all heard tales of men who refuse to ask for directions, and of women who get frustrated while they drive around for five hours in no man’s land, only stopping when the car runs out of gas. I think some people are just born with a lack of directional sense. The funny thing is that I’m not usually one of them, and yet I’ve gotten lost in the strangest of places and at the oddest of times.

When I first moved up here I was searching like mad for a job, and I didn’t care what job it was, I just needed something to do. I applied about a million places, and I was asked in to interview a few times as well. One of those interviews was at a correctional facility in the area, but it was in a part of a town I hadn’t ever been in before. This was of course before the time of widespread GPS use, and I didn’t even have a cell phone, but I had visited Mapquest and I thought I knew the way. Boy, was I wrong.

After the fifth left turn I realized I was lost, but I had gotten a head start and I still thought I could make it to the prison on time. Cue the warning signs. By the time I was on the highway I knew I wasn’t going to make it to that interview, and I also knew I had to find my way around this place come hell or high water. That’s when I started going for drives, just to find places I had never been, so that I could retrace my route later if need be. It’s amazing what the human mind can accomplish when it’s been trained to do so. That’s why I’m hardly ever lost anymore. My body remembers how to get somewhere I’ve been before.

Well, that and I’ve got GPS on my phone now.

Sam