A Three-Hour (de)Tour

I went to Ikea on Saturday, a three-hour drive that necessitated the dedication of almost half my weekend. It seemed an excessive amount of time and travel to buy two shelves and four brackets, but I already own four of the set and Ikea won’t ship the other two. They will ship the same shelf in another color, but not the one I want. I am not certain how color affects shipability, but those wacky Swedish innovators must know something I don’t, right? Whatever.

I’d been putting off the errand for weeks, not wanting to spend the gas money or the time, but my parents will be here Friday night for the holidays, and little does Dad know, Mom and I have decided installing shelves in my living room will be the perfect project to keep him out of our hair while we bake cookies. It won’t be the first time I’ve taken advantage of his carpentry skills on a social visit. Poor guy may as well have Makita stenciled on his forehead and drill bits for fingers.

A co-worker wanted to make the trip as well, so we decided to share the ride. I chose to drive, waving away her offer to help with gas (although sixty bucks later I wondered what the hell I was thinking), telling her she could help me out just by navigating. I made sure to ask if she was okay reading a map, since our route was by no means direct and required us to thread our way through the traffic of one-and-a-half major cities. She assured me that although she was no Special Forces operator, she could get us to our destination without incident. And I’m sure she would have, had our destination been someplace much, much closer and not required the use of the map.

Two hours in I realized we were in trouble. She wasn’t certain about north, couldn’t find our start point or destination, and couldn’t tell the difference between an exit indicator, an interstate, and a state route. It was no good asking her for road names either, because if the text of a road name followed the road’s wiggly path around a bend, she was completely stumped. At one point I asked her to locate the sun for me (it was a little overcast and I was busy avoiding the bumper of a homicidal Escalade), and it took her three tries to point to the bright orb in the east. We had to pull over twice so I could figure out where we were and where we needed to go. I was mildly annoyed, but no more than I would have been had I gotten myself lost. I should have planned more carefully so as not to have to rely so much on my passenger, I reasoned.

When we arrived around 11, Ikea was almost a ghost-town, but turned to utter chaotic melee in before we even left the showroom. By two-thirty, our tempers were getting pretty short from having to thread a loaded cart with a retarded wheel (the same one I always get) around human obstacles in tiny aisles. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect people to pull over to the side of a main thoroughfare before leisurely browsing the aisle’s contents. And is it really so hard to keep your kids from barreling into me while they play tag in housewares? Honestly, people are such space cadets sometimes.

When we got back in the car, I carefully traced our route home on the map with my finger, making sure she could, without assistance, point to A) where we were, and B) where we were going. So far, so good. Then once we were underway, the route we were on split suddenly into business/bypass, and I wasn’t sure which one connected to the road we needed. By the time she could locate the road on the map, the exit had flashed by and we were officially hosed. Of course there are a dozen different ways to get home, but I can only find them when I’m reading the map, and with Plan A now out of commission, she was utterly at a loss. I fought hard not to let my irritation boil over, as her anxiety level was already apparent. There was no sense in getting pissy; she couldn’t read a map and I couldn’t look away from traffic long enough to help her, and that was that.

I know she’s not the only person who can’t navigate by paper – my Mom and Dad play out the same scenario every time they travel outside their area code. Dad usually blows a gasket a few times and my Mom gets more flustered with each blunder. We never got that bad, injecting enough jokey self-deprecating humor to break the tension, but the similarity wasn’t lost on me. At one point she half joked that she was slow in responding because she felt like someone was going to die if she didn’t answer me right. Episodes of 24 flashed through my head.

In all honesty, I cannot fathom the inability to read a map. Now I know that most people now rely on Google maps printed in advance, or fancy GPS units built into the dash, but not having access to either of those this weekend (my printer was kaput), I had to rely on good old fashioned navigation skills. It seems easy to me – find the start point and the end point, then locate all the points between. While traveling the planned route, occasionally check the map against your position to confirm location and anticipate exits and turns. I don’t know what it’s like to look at a map and not be able to make heads or tails of it. I almost wish I did, so I could better teach someone else.

We eventually found our way home, but only after I pulled over a few more times and tried to be calm and understanding while helping her decipher the multicolored tangles of symbols and lines. I tried to reassure her I wasn’t upset, while she apologized for getting us lost. We laughed about it later, but I wouldn’t be surprised if next time she insists on driving.

Because I post here, I don’t really have anything to post here. I might try someday anyway. . I don’t accept notes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t comment.