I do have a good sense of direction. I just get confused sometimes!

Your little brother sounds great. Anyone who demonstrates “poor impulse control” in the realm of animal rescues is okay with me. John Barrett is…jeez, that’s pretty impressive.

I didn’t know that Ken had a bad sense of direction, but I DID know about Bill’s facial hair . You are absolutely right- he makes himself into a whole other Bill.

Okay, so I’ve been thinking about this for almost 24 hours now, and I can’t seem to work out the anagram for “confused.” Too long to be “lost.” Doesn’t matter— the serial U-Turns are part of the charm of any road trip.

Yes, my brother is a very kindhearted person: the St. Francis of the Lower East Side. (By the way, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi is October 4; the anniversary of Sputnik.)

Ken takes some teasing from me about his sense of direction; not all of it is mean-spirited. Most of it is unfounded. We did have one hilarious trip to LunaCon, a number of years ago, that we’ve since dubbed The Night of the U-Turn.

The feast of Howe is also coming up soon..yaaaaaaaaaaay!

I request further information on The Night of the U-Turn . No rush, of course, but if you’re ever inspired to tell it……

The Night Of the U-Turn was really just a matter of (a) heading off to some suburban hotel north of the city with only the vaguest of directions, (b) cracking each other up too much to actually pay attention to the road signs, and (c) my occasional and inexplicable conviction that we were Going the Wrong Way, leading me to make sudden U-turns followed by either puzzled silence or what-the-hell questions from Bob, followed by more U-turns.

The completely bizarre thing about the evening was that we made an odd number of U-turns (eleven, I believe) and didn’t end up back where we started. It’s like a word problem gone wrong on the entrance exam to hell.

Ken pretty much said it all—though it’s hard to capture the way the hilarity mounted with each pair of U-Turns, to the point where he pulled out of a gas station and drove in a circle just to get it out of the way.

What are friends for, if not to remind you of an isolated mistake over and over again? 😉

I think it’s cool. You trusted your instincts, even in the face of opposition! Go, Ken! You MAKE those U-turns, and you make them proudly!!

Ken sounds, not surprisingly, like a much better sport than i would have been. i would have found some way to blame you for it before pulling off to the side or the road and crying about how I couldn’t do anything right, hahahahahahaha.

It probably was hysterically funny. Do you remember how much time it cost you?

PS-

A word problem gone wrong on the entrance exam to hell. I LOVE THIS.

Re: PS-

I have to admit I semi-swiped that, or at least, was inspired by a line in Ursula LeGuin’s Changing Planes, in which she talks about airline travellers:

luggage-laden people rush hither and yon through endless corridors, like souls to each of whom the devil has furnished a different, inaccurate map of the escape route from hell.

And it’s all the more appropriate since I’m sitting in an airport right now. (Using its free wi-fi to denigrate it.)

i would have found some way to blame you for it before pulling off to the side or the road and crying about how I couldn’t do anything right, hahahahahahaha.

And knowing Bob, how far would that strategy have gotten you? 🙂