did we have prayerful contemplation on the bus? no.
For those of you who know me well, you know my directional abilities are limited. Over the years I have learned that when I am among many voices in a vehicle and the driver is trying to figure out which way to go, I must remain quiet. 99.9%* of the time, I am wrong. I say left, it was right. I say right, it was left. I can’t even do reverse psychology on myself. It took me a long time to figure that out – the being quiet part, I mean. My gut is so reliable for me on most other levels, it was hard for me to discredit my strong gut feeling about going right versus left. I learned. I now keep my mouth shut when a poll is taken in a vehicle. Well, most of the time.
*I do need to mention 2 memorable times when I have been correct. One was back in the mid-90s (I know, I know) when, after a friend’s wedding, 2 carloads of very directionally certain but considerably drunk people needed to get back to a farmhouse for some sleep. We ended up on a dark country road, everyone out of the cars pointing and insisting. I was sober and ended up yelling to get everyone’s attention, insisted on the way we would go, and was right. (whew! there was no precedent! they could have hurt me!) The other time was just this past August. There were 2 of us and we had pretty limited directions: “when you see the Taco Bell, you’re golden.” Oh really? We didn’t even have a certain name of the place we were trying to find. I saw a few landmarks I recognized and got us there. I was proud. I mentioned it more than once that night. As you can see, it just doesn’t happen that often.
Why am I writing this post? Well, the stories above are better than the one that actually inspired me to write. Well, not better, but more applicable to the title of this post.
Last night, while on the church bus, we were to pick up a regular member in a different place. I told this to the bus driver. We only had a street name (Lodi), no actual numbers, but I figured we’d just go by the place where this person used to live and find them. I shared this information too.
Our bus driver, John, (here’s a post I wrote about him earlier) drives fast. He stops for pedestrians, red lights, and passengers to get on and off the bus, but it’s always a thrill between the stopping and the going. We got to Lodi, just a mere block from where this woman used to live, John hit the gas, and off we went barreling down Lodi. I said to John “She’s on Lodi. We need to slow down and look for her.” John replied in the affirmative by pressing down on the gas. “But where are you going?” Still pressing on, John says, “Yah, Lodi. That’s where I’m going.” We turn onto James Street. “But this is James Street, not Lodi.” Now we’re barreling down James Street. John says “Yah, she lives up here. Lodi.”
Well this makes no sense. I glance at a passing street sign to be sure we’ve not switched into some alternate reality. “John, we’re on James Street, not Lodi. She said Lodi. This is James.” The bus keeps on. “Yah, Lodi and James.” “No,” i say. “Just Lodi. We’re not on it anymore.” John then points “She lives up here.” Ah ha. No matter what I had said to him, he was heading to where she lives now, which is not on Lodi street, but (everyone, now) JAMES.
“Listen John, we’ve got to go back to Lodi. That’s where she said she’d be. Turn around and go back to Lodi.”
I must tell you that you don’t have quiet conversations on this bus. It’s a bus, so there’s noise, especially when you’re barreling around bumpy Syracuse streets. I’m trying to tell you that I was having to speak loudly to him and him to me. But I know as my confusion grew with where he was going, and my frustration with the situation and my not having control of the vehicle, well, let’s just say he could hear me fine. We got back to Lodi. “John, when we get near her old place, pull over and honk.” John pulled over near where this member used to live, and there she was.
There were only 2 other people on the bus with us at the time. Dennis, who calls his home “The White House” and often talks about helping W. move out come January 20, said somewhat incredulously to me “I think you could be president, Victor Laura.”
Man, this is a post about my being right, isn’t it. Well, I guess it could also be said it’s a post about my being directional in a different kind of way. At least I wasn’t drunk. (If you missed the story near the top of the post, this comment looks scandelous.)
