Asking Directions

There are many men who are afraid to ask directions.  Not me.  Sometimes, if I'm desperately, hopelessly lost I won't bother asking directions.  I figure the people around me won't have any better idea than I do.  It'd be like wandering down Peachtree Street saying, "Do you know how I get to Paraguay?"  But if I'm lost in just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill way, I'll ask directions without skipping a beat.

This ability to boldly step forward and announce my incompetence to a complete stranger is very impressive.  "I wonder where Forsythe and Klondike is?" someone in the car will say.  "Let's ask that hirsute gentleman with the sign reading 'Dead puppy's 4 sale," I suggest, and my companions fall into an awed silence.  How self-assured he must be, they think, how confident and unafraid of the world's opinion to so reveal his vulnerability!

Not at all.

The fact is, I've been lost so many times, asking directions is mother's milk to me.  I ask directions before leaving the house; it's nothing for me to go up to a clerk and say, "Where's the almond milk?" and he'll come right back and say, "Try Kroger.  This is the hardware store."

In short, this weakness has made me a better human being.

Now with GPS, of course, I don't need to ask directions.  The GPS gives them to me.  Whether I want them or not.  "Shut up, GPS!" I will cry.  "I know where I am now!"  The younger generation, growing up with GPS will not know what it is to be lost.  They will never have to face the incredulous contempt of a stranger when asking the location of the Disney Princess Outlet Store.  I pity them.