I have become a magnet for lost people. Every time I leave my office for a walk, which is about three or four times a day, I am stopped, hailed, assailed, and I'm afraid. Do I have this look of authority, like I know where I am going therefore I can tell them the best way to go, or have I simply, over the years, become so much of a local that of course I'm the one they should stop to ask how to find every side street, dive bar and tourist attraction in the area?
Christ. Maybe it's time to invest in a pair of Jimmy Choos and have my hair highlighted and develop that air of entitlement that most of the people who come up from the city for charming country weekends seem to have.
Or pretend I don't speak English.
Or simply resign myself to my fate.
Two parts of this alarming trend annoy me most of all.
One, that nobody asks for easy stuff, say, how to get to the post office or the grocery store or the nearest ATM. They ask for complicated things. Like how to get to the library (which requires navigating a maze of one-way streets, and should I tell the two very obviously moneyed and quite metrosexual gentlemen in the convertible Porsche who stopped to ask me for directions that the neighborhood where I'm sending them is a wee bit dicey and perhaps one of them should stand guard over the car while the other goes in and gets what they need?). Or how to get to some restaurant in a part of the city that requires my use of hand signals indicating that when they reach the part where road forks six ways they should take the tine that's three from the left, then veer right to avoid the car-eating pothole. Meanwhile, the drivers in the cars idling behind us are starting to get that look of road rage.
The second scary thing is that I know all this stuff. Some of it so well that it's damned near impossible to describe it to anyone. This is your typical, complicated, cowpath-based, sprawling colonial city with several commercial centers, and to direct a visitor to some places, it would be easier for me to go back to the office, get my car and have them follow me.
Even before the age of Mapquest and GPS systems, it's a smug comfort to have lived in a place long enough to know your way around. I felt this way about Boston, about two or three years in. And I've felt this way about this town for - my God - more years than I care to admit to.
But with cities being bombed and the crime rates going up and every other day a report of someone simply disappearing, it's a smug (and probably false) sense of comfort to know that in this small town, when I am stopped, hailed and assailed, chances are low that I'll be robbed, kidnapped or assaulted.
And I can put up with a lot of annoyance for that kind of comfort.
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4 comments:
Your last two paragraphs put me forcibly -- and chillingly -- in mind of some Heinlein story set in 'the Crazy Years' right before the collapse of civilization.
Of course, so do most of our headlines.
Brrrrrrr.
If you carry a bloody axe over your shoulder, probably fewer people will stop you to ask for directions.
My office is in a 3-4 block area that is rife with tourist attractions (hey...that sounds familiar...could be because I typed something really similar over at my own place moments ago...;), and I'm CONSTANTLY being asked where things are located. RARELY by drivers, though. And the pedestrians, in the middle of the day, generally don't scare me. Oddly, I guess I kind of like feeling like I've helped them. Most aren't locals and they're asking for restaurant suggestions or nearby places to park. I honestly don't find it annoying at all. Clearly, I'm a freak.
I've only recently had a circle-of-friends-imposed ban on me giving directions to anyone at all to get anywhere at all lifted.
I didn't used to drive, and generally had too much going on upstairs to learn where anything was while riding in a car.
But since I started driving six years ago or so, I've learned all the shortcuts, back roads, and what-not. Also, as it turns out, I have an uncanny sense of direction. So when someone does ask me how to get somewhere from wherever here might be at the moment, I can usually help them, and I do it with a sense of pride.
I'm not incompetent at giving directions! Not anymore!!
H - I think I actually have a bloody axe...actually it's more of a scythe left over from last Halloween...hmmm...if I carry that, and then leave it in my office, I bet the Prince of Darkness will leave me alone, too!
SG - I'm starting to think that the XX chromosome carries a GPS device...
aaa - Yeah, when I didn't drive I couldn't give directions, either. But now that I do, I can't follow them when people give them to me. Strange.
Husband suggests I just carry a bunch of maps.
My verification word: drnyh - a playground insult Arabic children hurl at each other.
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