There is no hope for me . . .

My family wasn't blessed with the greatest sense of direction. Now my dad is a genius (straight As through college, graduated vet school with high marks even though he worked to pay for his education and had quite the social life, etc.). It kind of goes down hill from there. According to my teacher Paula, a study was done that shows that as you have more kids, they get stupider. Meaning in my family, Kendall is the smartest, I'm slightly dumber than her and Carter is . . . well Carter. Kendall definitely has a much better sense of direction than the rest of us, but finds our lacking hilarious. My mom, brother and I are pretty much hopeless.

When Carter first got his license, he always had to drive back to our house before going anywhere because he didn't know how to get to places otherwise. Finally my parents caved and got him a GPS which has helped tremendously. On family vacations, we have to make sure someone stays awake when my mom's driving because otherwise we will end up somewhere other than our destination. Even GPS isn't especially helpful.

While they have their issues, I think I take the cake on this one. I can't even admit how many times I've gotten lost "going home." I can't admit it because I lost count. In my defense, there are about 5 different highways you have to get on and my parents live on a little island on the coast, but seriously I should be able to get there by now. Back in May I had my greatest adventure trying to get home. I was distraught and under a lot of stress because earlier that week I had gone to check on Eric's mom at her house and had to call 911 to break down the door and found out she had passed away. On that same day I found out my father had had a mild heart attack. I'd say that adds up to a high level of stress. So after I had spent a few days comforting Eric, I was driving to the hospital near my parents house to be with my family before my dad went into surgery to clear one of his heart valves. I turned on my GPS and just zoned out for the drive. I was headed to New Bern, NC and when I ended up in Greenville, NC, I realized something was horribly wrong. I called my sister who could barely control her laughter. I proceeded to scream at my GPS for a good 20 minutes and contemplated throwing it out the window. Instead I put it away and relied on good old handwritten directions. I eventually made it in 4.5 hours when it should taken a little less than 3 hours.

So far in Brisbane I've been pretty successful. I took some random trips around the city when I first got here so I could orient myself and haven't had much issue with getting lost. Luckily I can't drive here and I'm sure that has something to do with it. Well today, my lucky streak ended. I was supposed to meet up for coffee with Jackie at 11am so we could compare projects and make sure we were both on the right track. I made it to Starbucks, but the wrong one. As I headed "towards" the right one, I ended up in the Valley and realized I was way off course. I called Jackie and she couldn't understand how I had even gotten there from my previous location. I then stopped in a store and got directions. The Starbucks was on the corner of Edward St and Adelaide St. I walked back up to Edward St (which I had passed) and proceeded to walk the wrong way down Edward St. I called Jackie again and she set me on the right path. Ultimately I was only 15 minutes late, but come on. I'm not a complete moron but sometimes I can't understand what I was thinking.

Common sense has also seemed to evade me. I have the book smarts and usually make pretty good grades though. One time my mom claimed one of my ex boyfriends and I were a good match cause he was "street smart" and I had no common sense. Thanks for that. What are you supposed to do with that? Its not like you can study harder and get common sense. I'm absolutely hopeless.

My grandmother is gettin up there in the age bracket and is starting to say pretty crazy things. Like when she moved rooms at her retirement home and told my sister one day she was upset because she couldn't see Jupiter and Mars anymore from her window (for the record, she has no telescope either). At dinner that night she explained she also saw Earth from that other window. Point made. The sad part is, my mother is only in her 50s and it's already starting. Sometimes she says things that make you wonder if under that hair color a true blonde lies hidden. One day I was talking to her about my company and she was asking if there were any travel opportunities. I told her that they had another office in Delaware but I didn't think I'd want to go there. She responded "Is Delaware in New Hampshire?" The morale of this story is that there is absolutely no hope for me. Evidently this phenomenon happens earlier and earlier each generation so I'll be crazy by 40.

There is an advantage to this lacking in my family. It makes for some pretty hilarious stories. I've been keeping a list of the funniest stories and intend to write a book one day. It probably won't be a best seller. To be honest it will probably not sell any copies because the only people that will want to read it will be my family and they'll get free ones. But it will be a good compilation of our history and will leave our little mark on the world. And the world will laugh.

"If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane" -Jimmy Buffet