I realized again but only after massive confusion that when women speak of places then directions are all in the abstract. Even when pointing to an actual place that is out of sight they will point in the wrong direction. So if you were to start walking in search of the place by the directions just given, even direct pointing, you will walk off in the wrong direction.
This happened again yesterday and the woman had me absolutely baffled while on the street, later I looked it up. She wants to direct me to a new place but she's careless with necessary details.
I had just started off walking when she emerged from a door and said directly to me having picked me out from the people passing by both directions, the same thing the previous guy said, "There he is." As if discovering me.
She walked with me for a distance down the block. I have no idea how long she intends to stay with me. It turned out to be to the end of the block. "Have you tried Zep's?"
Never heard of it. But I must try it she insists. "It's where the old Arby's used to be." That's directly in front of us within sight. Due South. It's now Torchy's. The distance is immediate. It's across the street. So what she said didn't make sense and I'm trying to visualize another Arby's in the area that she is pointing due West. She raised her arm and pointed toward the mountains. Zep's. Like Led Zeppelin. A few blocks that way in the old Arby's.
She meant 1/2 block due north, behind us, in the old Gizmo's.
She's all kinds of wrong and expects me to find it.
And I did. Bless her heart. Simple search [zep's denver] shows immediately it's in an adjoining building.
This is the third such similar incident this week where in speaking with a woman she pointed in the wildly wrong direction, just conversationally, simply to gesture "over there" and not specify an actual geological direction. And it's only Thursday.
I'm not complaining.
I'm describing an observation.
By contrast awhile ago the broken down guy with wrapped feet sitting in the sun in his wheelchair on Easter, alcoholic presumably, while talking about his unhappiness he pinpointed in the air onto his map actual veteran's places, (angrily, places that didn't help him) their real names, while pegging in front of him to his sides and behind him. All in the right direction. I could have walked to any place he mentioned. He is hopelessly broken but he's got a good local map in his head and he knows where he's been.
36 comments:
Chip, Before Mapquest, GPS, I was constantly asking for directions. I would get cases in towns all over Wisconsin. I would buy detailed map books for rural areas but when you got into town, you would need to find a local map or just ask someone. I learned QUICKLY that you NEVER ask a woman for directions. I know there are exceptions. But, when I did some middle school and high school teaching I came to see it might be genetic. In Wisconsin they have a statewide Geography Bee. The dumbest boys would do better than the smartest girls in these competitions.
You want good directions. Go to the local fire station. Firefighters know where everything is. They have to.
I remember having to stop in gas stations on Long Island when we used to get lost. Always got the directions because we made sure to buy something. Anything. Even just a car air freshener.
The GPS has taken away that simple ability to walk into a place...say hello...interact...and get information.
I gave up asking The Blonde for directions years ago.
It's always, "Give me the address". Her directions are it's always near something, usually "the old...", which relates to her childhood, not mine.
And, of course, when she knows something is on so-and-so street, "What's the street number?".
"Well, its out by 91 on the left-hand side", which narrows it down to anywhere between Lake Erie and our present location.
Women can't give you directions.
But they sure like to tell you what to do. Just sayn'
Tell me.
Last night I apped an uber like I usually do at that time there is no other choice other than walking the 4.6 miles.
I got a response that I would be getting picked up but then the driver asked where I was going and I promptly texted back Passaic. Ok so I started to wait and then check back at the app to see if the ride is coming I see him going north on the garden state parkway in the opposite direction away from me. I texted where are you going? I thought maybe he was looking for a gas station.
I hear nothing back. The driver kept missing every opportunity to turn around I figured omg he doesn't know how to turn around once he in a highway. I was awe struck.
I figured I wasn't going to cancel the trip if he wasn't going to cancel it and my curiosity waited until he got on the new Tappan Z bridge in NY.
I took a screenshot of the app in case nobody would believe me. The good news is though I didn't get charged for having to cancel the trip.
My wife never knows where North is. Without that you're pretty much lost. OTOH she chastises me for not remembering a restaurant we ate at five years ago. Different priorities I guess.
Oh, firefighter, or, in the old days, taxi driver. Which I did for a while back in the day. In the DC area, inner and outer beltway.
You bin to Souf-eas? Dayum!
Yeah, I did SE. But not often. Otherwise why I'm here today.
Oh, bullshit:
I realized again but only after massive confusion that when women speak of places then directions are all in the abstract.
Perhaps you guys ought to have made better choices in terms of the women with whom you've spent company. That's on you, full stop.
Oh, firefighter, or, in the old days, taxi driver. Which I did for a while back in the day. In the DC area, inner and outer beltway.
Oh, whatever.
I worked as a pizza deliverer back in the day, and I worked in at least three other jobs where I had to show up, on time (although I preferred earlier) wherever I had to without the benefit of GPS, or looking up directions on a computer and then printing it out, or using a smart phone. Etc. None of that existed at the time.
I used a map. Old school. And/or asked for directions and wrote them down precisely. Including asking for landmarks which would help me to get where I need to get in uncharted territory AND asking for landmarks which would instantly let me know I'd fucked up. Mostly, to repeat, I just used a map, all on my own. Again to repeat: Old school.
Or maybe I just learned the territory (using maps, driving around and taking note as I did) over a very wide span of geography. Maybe I even paid attention from childhood as my parents drove around!
Who knows.
W.T.F.
Jeepers creepers, you guys are entirely incapable of self-reflection. Your skills, which I assume were very sharp at some point, have devolved unto lazy, broad-brush attacks.
W.T.F.?
I gave up asking The Blonde for directions years ago.
It's always, "Give me the address". Her directions are it's always near something, usually "the old...", which relates to her childhood, not mine.
And, of course, when she knows something is on so-and-so street, "What's the street number?".
"Well, its out by 91 on the left-hand side", which narrows it down to anywhere between Lake Erie and our present location.
I always know the address. I always know the street number.
This is The Blonde you've always used as a tool to whip most women and men here? And she can't be bothered to know, or even--more important--determine a street address or find out a street number?
Sheesh.
I've been right about you from the start, many years ago...
...and her, as well.
Because of how you've been presenting her all of this many years, now. Just to bolster your own sweet self. Pftuie.
For all of youse guys's flirting with the alt-right & etc., in fact youse guys get very little and very few --
That said, this one's for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOJagnlnV_U
X-Ray- My Mom always gives directions by food. "Turn left at that restaurant that has the crablegs buffet." or "It's on Hwy 67 just past the produce stand that always has good sweet corn", or "On the same side of the street as Dairy Queen, but not as far as that Chinese place."
I'm taking her out on Friday to avoid the Sunday rush- we will be going to Bevo Mill which needs no directions.
Jim, I spent a summer working for a quarry drilling outfit. We would drill different rocks in quarries around New England and then blow it out. That was the fun part. Our foreman, who had an ATF explosive license, and was a fucking artist in blowing out these quarries, drank beer all day. Budweiser bottles, not in a cooler. Just a case in his truck. We worked out of CT but worked quarries in several states. When you asked him how long it would take to get to a quarry he would tell you, "Oh, that's about 5 beers." He sipped beer all day. Never drunk. The owner of the company knew and had no problem w/ it.
My father managed a road construction company. They did the shouldering on the road. The summer of 1989 I worked for them. I remember I made like $12.00/hour which in those days was big money, especially for a college kid.
The company would break the road up and then send the concrete up a conveyor belt which emptied into a crusher. My job, 12 hours a day, was to sit on top of the conveyor belt, above the crusher, and pull wire out of the concrete so it wouldn't jam in the crusher. I sat on this pipe all day. The work was pretty bad. There was a ton of smoke coming out of the crusher from the road being crushed. I wore a face mask and goggles all day and it could be brutally hot. I did this work for 2 1/2 months. I made a shit load of money though. I believe minimum wage was around $3.35 at that time and I was really rolling in the dough. I ended up buying a car-an old chevy monza, which was kind of sporty at the time.
The guys I worked with would pick me up in the morning and I remember they drank beer in the morning, during lunch, and we would go to a bar after work. My dad knew about this and never cared. They were always good workers and were never actually drunk.
rcommal said...
"Perhaps you guys ought to have made better choices in terms of the women with whom you've spent company. That's on you, full stop."
The same might be said of your "husband", if you have a husband.
Jim, that's a novel way of doing it. Maybe if my wife picked that up I'd remember the restaurants she'd like me to remember.
Titus, I forget what I got paid for that drilling job but it was at least 3-4 times minimum wage, like your job. And, we got to stay in motels and eat and drink[to a certain extent] on the company. I was 18 and felt like a rich guy. We worked a quarry in New Hampshire near a great steak restaurant. A Rhode Island quarry there was a nearby seafood shack w/ whole belly fried clams. I assume you are familiar w/ the whole belly deal? The only way to eat fried clams. We Eyetalians also remember places via food.
For some reason people always ask me for directions. Maybe, because I look "approachable". One of the most annoying people are those who ask you for directions and then question your directions. I mean, if you know how to get there, why are you asking me?
One guy started to argue with me once, and i just lied and told him was right.
Of course, everyone around here has GPS - so "asking for directions" is like so 20th century.
"Last night I apped an uber"
You're too cool for school, Lem.
You should always ask a woman for directions to Crazytown.
They have memorized the way. Just sayn'
It's not memorized, Troop. It's genetic.
Though there are exceptions... April, DBQ.
Not governed by their genes... or something.
"Perhaps you guys ought to have made better choices in terms of the women with whom you've spent company. That's on you, full stop."
The same might be said of your "husband", if you have a husband.
Actually, I do have a husband. Met him in February 1992, married him in January 1995. I've been married exactly once, and just to my guy, this one man, who, oh by the way, happens to be an actual engineer.
rcocean: You truly do not know what you're talking about, as you're implying what you're implying. I, in fact, am neither liar nor troll in the way in which you are suggesting.
Even Trooper knows better--or, if he doesn't, I'd be happy to disclose the full details to him directly, whatever the heck he might choose to do with those. (Troop and I have a mutual friend--a mutual friend who has met my husband, and me, in person on three separate occasions, in three different states, the first such of which took place in Virginia, a number of years ago, as homeschooling parents, when, sight unseen, all of us altogether, shared a multi-bedroom time-share. For the better part of s week.)
Even chickelit, I suspect, could corroborate certain details. And there are others.
rcocean: You are lazy. You spout. You've done it for years, unfortunately, because that's exactly opposite to the reason I first started paying attention to what you have to say. Funnily enought, I remember the exact moment when I first heard of you. It was years and years ago. Sheesh. More like a decade. It was when, back in early bloggingheads days, that Bob Wright spoke of a comment you'd made on a podcast within the previous week (I respected the comment, by the way, which is why you caught my interest).
rcocean: Don't fuck with me in terms of fake facts about my family. Over the years, I've been remarkably truthful about that.
Actually, don't fuck with me in terms of facts. I'm better at that sort of thing than, apparently, you can be bothered to imagine. Hell, I'm better at that sort of thing as a matter of principle, as it has turned out.
W.T.F.
Way back in the day, Haz affirmed a hard choice that my husband and I were making at that the time by sharing the following vid, which thing I now am going to share with you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de_P2aUZJyA
I paid attention. And unto this day am grateful.
I owe a full-throated apology to rcocean because, sloppily, I attributed a comment to rcocean which, in fact, Sixty Grit wrote and made.
rcocean: You did not make the comment that set me off. I fucked up and unjustly accused you. No excuses. I am sincerely sorry and I apologize without reservation, because I was wrong, full-stop.
I did just try to post a full-throated, no-excuse apology and sincere sorry for my obvious fuck-up, but it's not showing for me. I'm hoping that it got through but I just can't see it here, at least yet.
After a while comments on old posts go on moderation mode. It just means that I get an email saying there is a new comment and its up to me to publish it.
Thanks.
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