Really, Don’t Ask Me
I don’t know if this will work, but I’m sending a plea into the Universe: do not let anyone ask me for directions.
Yesterday, I had to run to Robert’s Market (read that Ro-bear’s). I’ve been to Robert’s untold times. The last several days, I’ve been driving up and down the street Robert’s is on like Dale, Jr. lapping a racetrack—over and over and over again.
Yet.
I wasn’t sure which street it was on. I had two choices: Esplanade or Elysian Fields. I felt it was on Esplanade.
It wasn’t.
To say I have no sense of direction is to laughably understate the truth. I’ve found that humans are incredibly tolerant of this defect as long as I confess my ineptness (“I really can’t follow directions, so can you tell me slowly?” That’s when I need directions. The thing I can’t handle is when someone asks ME for directions.
People in New Orleans do this ALL THE TIME. It’s a tourist town. The tourists are a tiny bit lost. They need help. And they ask me.
I’ve lived in the Bywater for 8 years. I can (halfway) get around (as long as you don’t need me to go to Robert’s). But just ask me how to get to the bike entry of Crescent Park. I feel TERRIBLE as I point inanely, struggling to describe how you go past the entrance and then come back a bit. I’m unable to describe what street it’s near (‘you get to Poland, you’ve gone too far’—the WORST form of directions ever), even what a ramp is (‘it’s like a driveway”). That poor family—with children, I’m saying. They’re probably still wandering around lost, shaking their heads at me—that chick.
You might advise me to just tell people I don’t know how to get there. But then I feel like I’m lying. And they’ll know I’m lying. And they’ll return to Cleveland saying people in New Orleans are such jerks, they won’t even help you find a simple park.
Of course, it’s infinitely better to send them up a driveway-thingy that, you know, goes back where it comes from, and I don’t know which cross street it’s on but not as far as Poland and, no, I don’t think there’re any bathrooms, but maybe at the other end of the park where it has that big flat dock-like thing….Yeah, that’ll really make their trip to New Orleans memorable.
