Day 23: Remember the Time... That I Could Get Lost Inside a Phone Booth?

Years of frustration have taught me that whenever I come out of an unfamiliar or even semi-familiar subway station, drive to a seldom-visited location, or walk around my new one-floor office building, all I have to do is go the opposite way that I think I should go and it will probably turn out to be the right call.

I hate to admit that I fall into this typical female stereotype, but I have exactly zero sense of direction. It has always amazed me that my sister only needs to go somewhere once - like a hours-far-away outlet mall - to remember exactly where it is, even if we need to travel down a bunch of winding back roads to get there.

Me? I could get lost inside a phone booth. And I get truly scared when I don't know where I am and am surrounded by unfamiliar territory. I think it stemmed from a horrible childhood memory in which my sister wandered off as a toddler at the Lucas County fair. While she was only lost for a few minutes before we heard her name announced over the loudspeaker, it was the one and only time in my childhood I saw my easygoing mom in a panicked terror. So I find it ironic that I can get myself lost so easily.

Remember the time I had no idea how to get where I was going?

While there are an endless number of times I could write about here, here is my all-time most lost list:

Before there were cell phones and GPS and iPads, there were good 'ol fashioned paper maps - of which I didn't have any on my drive back from a basketball game in a neighboring city when I was 16 years old. Good 'ol Bonnie my Pontiac Bonneville had great gas milage as I was driving aimlessly and crying for TWO HOURS because I was too scared and felt too stupid to ask for directions near my own hometown. While it was completely true, it was a pretty poor excuse for being 90 minutes late for work.

The next year, I drove after high school one day to visit my then-boyfriend in Gross Pointe Woods, a suburb of Detroit. I stayed as late as I thought I should on a school night, then headed home in the dark, which was nearly a straight shot on the expressway. I must have missed a turn or headed the wrong way because the next thing I know, I'm sobbing on the phone telling my boyfriend that I somehow wound up in downtown Detroit. After dark. By myself. While he was less than helpful at getting me back to the expressway, he was a good distraction - just like the trains that go around and between the buildings a few stories up, which stopped my tears for a few seconds as I marveled.

The first time I drove out of the safety of southeast Michigan and northwest Ohio, it was for a freelance work retreat in Illinois. I left in early afternoon with a plan to get to my destination in mid-Illinois around dinnertime. After an epic unplanned detour - in which I accidentally stole a map from a gas station because I was so flustered and the time change - which I forgot about - I arrived at my destination more than two hours after I was supposed to get there and was so upset and frustrated, I passed on drinks with my colleagues to just go to bed.

And my most recent episode happened today, unfortunately.  I actually got lost on foot two blocks north and five blocks east of the building where I work in downtown Chicago. I saw a farmers’ market on my way back and somehow got turned around, accidentally walking more than half a mile in the wrong direction, tacking on an extra 30 minutes to my lunch break.

I was not born with an internal sense of direction, which is why I always carry a city map in my purse. Right next to my iPhone, iPad, and GPS.