Girl Directions

When I leave a restaurant bathroom I always turn in the wrong direction. I’ll admit it—I’m directionally impaired.

Getting lost has plagued me since childhood. I remember being on an expressway and thinking my dad was brilliant to navigate the roads. I thought that every time you came to a new overhead sign you had to make a decision on which way to go. Didn’t realize you simply stayed on the expressway until you were ready to exit. Duh.

Three years ago I moved to a new city and was trying to find my way to a writers’ meeting. I was so excited—I’d left a wonderful critique group in Georgia and was hoping to replicate the group here. I consulted a map, feeling like a grown-up as I tracked the route.

All went well—until the last road. It wasn’t there. I drove a half-mile past where it should have been before I gave up and turned around. Then I backtracked a mile. The road simply wasn’t there.

I consulted my map. There it was, big as life. So I tried again. But again, no road by that name or any other appeared where it should have been located. So I tried again. (I know, the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome. Have you met me?)

This time I noticed a very short gap in the commercial buildings lining the road and a miniature wall off to the side. I was on a bridge? The map hadn’t showed a bridge!

By the time I got to the meeting, 20 minutes late, I was babbling and a bit wild-eyed. Recently one of the guys mentioned that day, laughing: “I thought you were either crazy or just cute.” He still hasn’t told me his final decision—which, now that I think about it, probably tells me his final decision.

I finally bought my husband a GPS which lives in my car and which he doesn’t have a clue how to use. Without the GPS, I need girl directions. Don’t mention compass points, mileage, or bank names. Tell me to turn left at the dead-end, go straight until you pass the big school on the right, then at the next light, where there’s a gas station/car wash, turn right, etc. I will fill up a page with handwritten directions and I will get there. Someday.

Public Toilet Dreams

I have deeply paranoid dreams about public toilets and huge, maze-like hotels. Recently, the two combined forces in a dream that had me trying to find my room, racing against a deadline, and dealing with terrible public toilets, as well. That’s just not fair! If one of those nefarious squirrels from another bad dream had made an appearance, I probably would not have survived to whine about it all.

I used to ask people if they have public toilet dreams. Too many people drew away as if to escape the fearful darkness that they must have thought emanated from my being, so I quit asking. But I know I’m not the only one. Just Google “toilet dreams” and see what I mean.

Some of my classics? A row of stalls with the doors cut so high that as you sit, you’re exposed from the waist down. An outhouse lying on its back, so you have to lie on your back to go. (Think about that for a second. Gross, eh?) A huge bathroom built like a stadium, with toilets in ascending rows, and no privacy anywhere.

The literature on the subject (and by literature I mean Google hits) says that toilet dreams indicate feelings of embarrassment and vulnerability. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

The maze of hotel rooms stems, I’m certain, from my inability to find my way around in the world. Coming out of a restaurant bathroom I’ll turn the wrong direction every time. Before the invention of GPS I knew only one way to get somewhere. Or maybe not even that. One memorable time prior to cell phones I was trying to drive from one mall to another without going to “home base” first. No matter what I did, I’d end up where, instead of the road I swear showed on my map, I’d be facing a lake. After three tries, I found a payphone, called John and said, “You’re going to have to move the house. I can’t find you.”

Any recurring dreams in your life? And all you public-toilet-dreamers, I know you’re out there!