Lost and Found

The topic of the week is "Lost and Found."  The first thing I thought of when reading this prompt was how often I get lost. I was not given a sense of direction, no, in it's place, I have a scrambler. My advanced ability to connect random things together means that I often get lost in thought and find myself traveling down unexpected paths.

love these tights....

      although you will find out exactly why

you probably shouldn't follow me 

unless you are ready for an adventure!

Soon after moving into my neighborhood, I took the kids trick or treating. My older kids confidently ran off with friends, leaving me with my little one. We happily went door to door in the dark, until her feet were tired. I looked up and realized I didn't recognize a single thing. Not a thing. We walked for a while. Then, admitting defeat I started asking people if they happened to know where my street was located.

Unfortunately, not only am I really good at getting lost, I am also excellent at forgetting left and right. So, it really didn't matter if someone told me to go to the corner, take a right, then two lefts and another right....I wouldn't remember...hmmm, was that two rights and a left, or a left, two rights....did I already take a right, or was that a left? My right, or your right?  ugh.  Once I even blurted out, "Do you know where I live?" "Do you recognize me?" It didn't matter that I had a cell phone on me. Who would be able to walk me through the maze sight unseen, with my sketchy knowledge of locations?

I did make it home. Embarrassed, with a tired crying daughter and a new found resolve to figure out the neighborhood.  I will commit street names to memory. I will be able to tell anyone, at any time,  how to get to my house, the little one in the center of the labyrinth.

But...years later, I am still stuck. Last weekend someone asked how to get back to the main road from my house and all I had was gibberish to offer. Now I am afraid to walk the dog in case they are still driving around aimlessly- full of murderous thoughts over my insane directions.

So what.  I get lost.   It just is what it is. 

Eventually I find my way, or am found.....or worse found out. 

For whatever reason, I am often chosen to chaperone events. This is really a strange role for me. Driving a van full of teens around in a strange city.....?  One year I was paired up with another directionless chaperone and we found ourselves completely, utterly, unbelievably lost in the sand dunes. Seriously...nothing to see but sand in every direction. No water, oh and did I mention the black clouds, there was a storm on it's way. 

We did have another chaperone with us who claimed to have an "inner GPS" but even that could not save her from our spinning inner compasses.  

(if you are wondering, "so, who was watching the kids" yeah, not us)   

- my directionless companion actually spotted a telephone pole...

and figured, 

where their are telephone poles...

there is civilization.

We found our way out!  Miles from the car, but we were out!

and my knack for getting hopelessly lost was found out.

 

Funny thing though. I found that I am really, really good at corn mazes. Living in the Midwest, corn mazes are a fall tradition and, traditionally I find my way without all the confusion of regular life. Peculiar.

~The End~