So I was setting forth in the bitter winter cold to go to a concert.
According to Google maps, this trip was supposed to take 18 minutes. According to actual experience, it took about forty.
See, this great state has stupid stupid roads. For some unfathomable reason, there is no reflective paint. Anywhere. This is a state that routinely has snow, sleet, ice, rain, fog, and any number of other horrible weather conditions. So whenever there is bad weather, you can't see anything. And when I'm driving in the dark, half the time I find myself guessing about where the lanes are.
In addition to all this nonsense, the road signs are so small that it is impossible to tell what road the cross-street is until you have passed it. When you're on the freaking highway, you can't slow down at every intersection! And the signs are green. GREEN with WHITE letters. Guess what else? They are barely more reflective than the roads.
So, I had a fun* adventure finding my turn off from the highway. An adventure that involved passing the right street, swearing, turning around, passing the street again, swearing, somehow ending up in a funeral parlor parking lot, and finally taking the right turn.
This is bad at the best of times. It is worse when you are rather ill and your sinuses are threatening to revolt against you, taking your vestibular sense (that's your ability to balance) and your ability to process simple information with them.
It got worse when I tried to find a road which, apparently, only existed in google map's imagination. So then I found myself on a side road screaming horrible horrible swears at my steering wheel whilst shaking my head like a mad dog. Some of these swears had not passed my lips since the times when I had to do chemistry lab reports. Ashley knows what I am talking about!
Eventually I decided just to wing it and take the road that was 37 NOT 38 (which stinky Google maps said I was supposed to take) and hope that I had not wasted over half an hour and a few dollars worth of gas. Then, as I was warily traversing this suspicious road I saw a sign that said: PAVEMENT ENDS. And I was like, what does that mean? Then the pavement ended! I found myself bouncing along a dirt track with no pavement and no road lines at all. Another sign appeared. It was a bizarre corkscrew shaped arrow. Than was when the road got really twisty and I began to think that I was going to die.
But behold! A light shone forth from a nearby subdivision and I found myself on pavement once more. And then, by magic, I found the other streets I was supposed to find! Google maps had not been a completely despicable evil machine.
It was a Christmas miracle. It wasn't much of one, but I'll take what I can get in these dark economic times.
ModernHelen
ps: One the way home I learned a valuable lesson: if it is below freezing and your windshield ices over DO NOT USE WIPER FLUID. Because then it freezes and you can't see. Duh!
* This is 'fun' used in the sarcastic sense. Other examples include: "Gee! Chemistry Lab at eight in the morning is so 'fun!'" and "The most 'fun' I had this weekend was listening to a bunch of fifth-graders play violin!"**
** I understand that they have to start playing somewhere. But that somewhere should be a closet for at least four years.
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