All Write, Already!

I am a terrible navigator. Although I did once find my own ass with a map, so I'm not that bad.

I navigate by sight (which, a friend once told me in a fit of pique, is how women navigate) and if I have driven someplace before, I can usually find my way back. Following directions I have a problem with.

But I am not as bad as I used to be. Once, when I had just gotten my license, I tried to meet a friend at the AMC Theatre on 144th and Center -- hereafter referred to as the Fuckyouplex due to the many bad experiences I have had that involve it in one way or another. The Fuckyouplex is a building of truly Wal-Martian proportions, fronted by a big, bright red sign and a parking lot bigger than my high school gymnasium.

I couldn't find it. Drove up and down and up again. Couldn't find it. The next day I called my friend to apologize. I told him I had driven the length of 114th Street with no luck. He told me he had said 144th Street. I looked daggers at him, just like in the comics.

"Dude, you should, like, learn where more stuff is," he said, and I swear that is verbatim, because the words are burned in my brain as the single most superfluous piece of advice I have ever been given. The effect was heightened by the fact that my friend has this staccato, affectless voice and this straightforward, graceless manner of saying whatever he thinks. I laughed so hard that I had to forgive him for giving me the wrong directions.