We got snapped at this weekend, asking for directions. We pulled up next to this pleasant seeming, elderly type lady, and we rolled down the window, and we said: “Hi! Excuse me! Can you tell us how to get to thusandsuch? Do we take this turn?” And she said, with a huge twinkly smile, “Yes, you take that right and go straight for 17 miles.” And then, still smiling, but now sinister and suddenly cold, the moisture on her eyes flash-freezing like a splash of water zapped to the far side of Planet X: “Why don’t you buy a map?”
\nWhat?!
\nFor the next two miles we ran through different scenarios. What was her problem? I mean, I love to give directions around my hometown. Drive up beside me. Roll down the window. You’ll see how inappropriately pleased I can be, showing off my vast knowledge of the local grid — “Oh yeah, you’re almost there — just three more lights up!” or: “OK, so. Go down past the park with the climby train, take the first right and then the soft<\/i> left at the high school — you can’t miss it. Hey, you have a nice day too!” Great stuff.
\nWe swung around a wide curve in the road and a jagged stretch of coastline came floating into view. From our vantage point driving along the high cliffs, the beach looked a lot like a squiggle drawn by satellite sensors. And then of course. It was so obvious. What incredible bad luck! — an angry cartographer! We’d stopped an angry cartographer and asked her for directions. It all made sense. No wait, not angry. Just sad, really. In a bittersweet way.
\n“Why don’t you buy a map?” she’d said. And it echoed echoed echoed as we rolled along toward thusandsuch. “I’m so hungry. No one will hire me. I hate mapquest. Please. Friend. Why don’t you buy a map?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We got snapped at this weekend, asking for directions. We pulled up next to this pleasant seeming, elderly type lady, and we rolled down the window, and we said: “Hi! Excuse me! Can you tell us how to get to thusandsuch? Do we take this turn?” And she said, with a huge twinkly smile, “Yes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-and-also-that"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}