Work Bus

Our charter bus came with a loud GPS voice that only says one thing: “Increase distance when following.”

Meaning, bus driver, you’re too close to the car in front of you.

After several hours on the road hearing only this statement on semi-regular basis, from the back of the bus someone shouts: “Tell it to mind its own business already!”

I conclude there is no good way to travel.

Grandpa’s Driving School

I’ve been driving for a decade but chauffeuring my Grandpa around lately has me feeling like I am back in driver’s ed.

The first problem is his car, which is super modern and yells at you if you get close to the dashed line. I never realized how much I apparently hug the right side of the road. It doesn’t help any that I haven’t driven a big vehicle in over a year—so I’m quite cautious and intimated driving it.

Second, Grandpa is a very active passenger. He scans the road and tells you when to get over. He says “good job, good job” if you slow down sufficiently for a turn. He lets you know that the light has been green for a while so you should slow down because it will probably turn red eventually.

Third, Grandpa’s idea of giving directions usually means telling lengthy stories about something unrelated and then slipping instructions while at it. So for example: “And then his machine would go up and down and left. LEFT. TURN LEFT. Nope, we missed the turn…And then her husband died and she decided to move to (get in the right lane) the middle of nowhere and (THE RIGHT LANE.)”

I’ll probably come out of this a better driver. Probably. At least one afraid to get too close to the right side of the road.

Taxi Driver: * laughs nervously *

I had a truly fabulous day exploring some incredible malls with a fellow American here in Thailand and I’d love to tell you about it.

But the evening really belongs to my taxi driver and his nervous laugh. 

If I were ranking People I Don’t Want Laughing Nervously While Working, I think taxi drivers fall right under heart surgeons and airline pilots. I place so much trust in this random stranger to not get into a car accident and kill me. And in Thailand, where traffic rules are really more of guidelines, I place double the trust.

My taxi driver tonight would speed up abruptly, or slam on the breaks, and make a sort of “whooooeeeshhhh” noise right after. At which point I would laugh nervously. And then he would laugh nervously. And then we would narrowly avoid hitting someone on a motorcycle.

About ten minutes into the drive, my taxi driver abruptly pulled over and said: “GPS no good.”

Except I did not understand him at first and looked out the window in bafflement. I informed him this was not my destination, nor anywhere near it. He repeated “GPS no good” about six times before I finally understood and pulled up the destination on my own phone and handed it over. 

“I speak a little English,” he then informed me, beaming. “GPS no good.”

“Are you having a good day?” I asked conversationally. 

He ignored me. Several other attempts at communication – all ignored – left me convinced his “little English” only involved GPSs.  

He did have much to say about GPSs. He informed me his GPS came from Thailand. I had Apple? 

I pointed out that my phone is a Samsung. (Probably. It was the cheapest smartphone I could find.)

He nodded knowingly. Japan. Good phones, good GPSs. (We narrowly avoided hitting another biker.) 

Another problem presented itself. My phone showed the distance in miles and feet, not meters! Eh, he shrugged it off. Close enough. 

Then my phone dimmed. This freaked him out. It went dark! But he did not know the words to say it went dark, so he kept contrasting the dim screen of my phone to the bright light coming from his. 

By the time we reached my destination, I counted 6 motorcyclist who barely made it past us with their lives. 

* insert nervous laughter *

Even when I know where I’m going, I don’t.

Today I made it all the way to Madison and back without a GPS! I know I’ve been making this drive almost every month for nearly 2 years, but you have to understand, directions aren’t my strong suit. Or my weak suit. Or really, in the suit at all. 

That said, my triumph today is tinged with embarrassment. I got on the highway towards Madison and drove for a good 5 minutes before it dawned on me that I was driving in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go. I was even looking for a specific exit and had been studying all the signs towards Milwaukee with great interest without it once dawning on me that I was not even pointed in the right direction.

It wasn’t that I was lost, per se. In fact, I’m rarely lost. I am, however, frequently turned around. Today was one of those days.

The Map (or lack thereof) in My Mind

A few weeks ago I left from Delafield to drop my cousin off  in New Berlin. I got on the highway and drove for quite a while without really processing my surroundings. In the back of my mind, I realized there was a lot more construction than when I picked her up in the morning. However, I sort of pushed the idea away and it took a while for the suggestion to become a full-fledged thought. By that point, I had driven past the last exit for Oconomowoc and was stuck on I-94 East almost till Johnson Creek. I was headed in the exact opposite direction. Altogether, my detour took about 40 minutes just to get back to the starting point of Delafield. 

I wish I could say this was an unusual day, but if I am being honest, the unusual day is when I figure out where I am before I miss the last exit. 

Or at least, that was me for most of my driving experience. Lately, I’ve noticed I am getting much better at recognizing where I am and how to get to the location I want to be. It only took over a year of canvassing almost every street in the greater Waukesha area for me to gain a sense of direction! For Waukesha, that is. Don’t ask me to leave!

Street names still elude me. I can follow my nose but I’m always amazed to look up and realize I’ve been on Capital or Sunset. When I try to visualize in my mind how everything fits together, my head hurts. It is like something barely out of reach. I try to grasp it…and give up. My brain does not work in maps!

Thank goodness for the GPS! If you are shaking your head and wondering if your kid should ever ride in the car with me again, I can tell you that if I had been paying attention, I would have realized I was driving past Oconomowoc. I recognized the area. I’m not that bad with direction! Of course, the paying attention thing kind of concerns me. I feel my only excuse is Lucy’s line. There were other things on my mind!