Mapping

First published February 1, 2009

I started to write about our venture downtown yesterday, but was interrupted by my husband's mumbling in the corner. He's sitting in our office (corner of the living room with a desk) pouring over paper maps, Google maps and local maps trying to plan a route to an appointment that we have today at 1:30 pm. He had one route ready to go and decided to doublecheck it with another map. This map uses the same names for streets but is in a totally different area of the city. A book of Cairo maps decided to take the easy way out and not to even include those portions of the city on their pages.

So he sits typing, scrolling, flipping and exhaling. I'm directionally-challenged of the most severe nature so this happened to me even when I was in Springfield, MO. To a Human GPS, this is completely unacceptable. When we were shopping for stationery he actually stopped, looked up at the sun, browsed the map and determined which direction we should go. I would have stopped, looked up at the sun, browsed the map and determined that since it was such a sunny day we should walk endlessly for hours and eventually hail a taxi.

How will this end? I don't know. Every day starts like the other, but always ends very differently. Keeps life interesting and my husband's Boy Scout skills sharp.