We woke up on Saturday to sunshine and blue skies. Jay, who spends the week lit by fluorescent lighting and the flicker of his computer screen, announced that WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING!
So, good wife and family activity organizer that I am, I leap for my computer. Click click click… “AHA! Here’s something… how about this? Remlinger Farms. Blueberry picking… farm animals… a steam train. It’s perfect, right?” And he agrees.
I leave the website up on the computer. “Why don’t you write down the directions,” I suggest, and am off to pack my backpack.
I have, at times, been accused of being untrusting, obsessive, possibly even a nag. I prefer to think of it as conscientious and thorough. As we load into the car I ask him again, “Did you write down the directions?”
He nods and grunts, which worries me a little. Jay tends to be a bit… shall we say overconfident when it comes to the detailed map of Seattle that exists in his head. But I let it go… I wouldn’t want to be accused of (gasp) nagging.
I roll down my window, turn up the radio, and we head east.
Several miles later we pull off of 520 and into less familiar territory. “Umm…” Jason pauses at an intersection, looking uncertainly from right to left.
“What?” I ask, “I thought you said you got the directions!”
“Well, I looked at them.” He turns right. “I think it’s this way.”
We drive several more miles, and Jay’s face gets less and less certain. “I’m not sure this is the right road,” he finally admits.
“Wow, good thing you WROTE DOWN THE DIRECTIONS.” I shoot back. Admittedly it is rather caustic. But come ON!
I pull out the Thomas Guide from the back seat. Never fear, always-prepared Jenny is… ta-da! Prepared!
Although as it turns out, always-prepared Jenny, while prepared, is not so good at reading Thomas Guides. And so Jay pulls the car off the road. We scan the maps together. After seven minutes we ascertain that we ARE in fact on the right road… We think.
As we drive, Jay says, “If we see a tourist attraction sign that says Remlinger Farms, we’ll know we’re on the right road.”
“NOOOOooooo!!!” I exclaim, with withering sarcasm. Jay sends me a weary look, but it’s not enough to stop me. “CAPTAIN OBVIOUS, I’m so glad you are with us! Whatever would we do without you? What happens if we see THE FARM… does that mean we’re on the right road too?”
At least *I* think I’m funny.
We did make it to the farm. And next time? Oh, I wish I could say that next time Jay would responsibly look up and write down the directions to our destination. But I know he won’t. And when he gets confused, or we get lost, that’s when I’ll jump in and make witty and cutting remarks at his expense. It’s how we operate, and there’s a certain comfort in the predictability of it all.
THIS is what marriage is all about.
***
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xo Jen
August 5, 2007 at 11:31 am
Ah, yes. The directions. My Good man keeps navigating us to the wrong side of the lochs. And there aren’t many bridges. It’s one thing to take the scenic route but this is getting ridiculous…
August 5, 2007 at 11:46 am
Did you at least like the farm once you got there :) ?!? One of these days we want to head out there, and I will make sure the husband or I grabs the directions :) !!
August 5, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Hey! I’m married to a Jay who also refuses to write down directions. It’s fun isn’t it?
August 5, 2007 at 1:24 pm
That totally IS what marriage is all about! hehe… great post!
August 5, 2007 at 1:31 pm
And this, AB, is why I love my iPhone. I have a Google map everywhere I go.
Of course, that doesn’t justify the price. I justified the price b/c JEFF got an xbox360, and so OF COURSE I should get an iphone, right?
August 5, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Does your adorable son make any comments during this process? How much does it cost to get into Remlinger’s this year?
August 5, 2007 at 3:17 pm
My husband and I are both Mapquest junkies, so we always have a map. That allows us to skip directly to arguing about what the map actually SAYS.
August 5, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Men and directions, it is always the same. As a child we were driven ACROSS France for FIVE WHOLE HOURS instead of DOWN the country by my father who said ‘I’m in charge – I have a degree in Geography and I am the driver.” It is still the same today!
August 5, 2007 at 6:41 pm
This is what every marriage is about LOL! Don’t you hate it when they fall into their stereotypes? ;)
ps – do you pay extra for those really long word verification ‘words’ lol!
August 5, 2007 at 9:10 pm
My sisters once video-taped my parents arguing over directions.
In Scotland.
Then, I laughed. Now, I relate.
August 5, 2007 at 11:11 pm
He must be related to MY husband…. Marc does that stuff too!
My husband doesn’t like to write down dates either. We spent $180 on tickets to some dinosaur show that he told me was on Saturday. When he pulled up the tickets on Saturday? We found out they were for FRIDAY. Grrrr!
August 6, 2007 at 4:38 am
My husband always says, “Oh,we’ll find it.” Perfect.
August 6, 2007 at 5:51 am
Men and directions…a trait left from the stone age.
You rolled down the window? Don’t you know it’s August. Gawd, if I did that down here, my face would melt off of my skull from the heat…and I’m not talking about my make up. Though being a southern belle, making up sweating off is a horror too and why we always keep a compact of powder.
August 6, 2007 at 7:36 am
My husband is an evolutionary wonder. He has to know exactly where he is at any given moment and always knows precisely where he is going, down to the 1/10th of a mile. He uses GPS to go in a straight line.
Me, on the other hand. I almost never bring directions. If I’m on a trip and get lost, I just call Hubby and he’ll GPS it for me over the phone. My very own personalized talking map!
August 6, 2007 at 9:46 am
Every man seems to have this aversion to maps and getting directions.
Hubby and I were coming back from a day at the beach and it took us an extra hour because he got us lost in the wilds of upstate NY.
Why did Moses roam the desert for all those years? Because even in Biblical times, men refused to stop and ask directions.
August 6, 2007 at 9:58 am
Oh, I am the worst at the smart-assed comments!! My husband really hates it. I just have to remind him that this is how I was when he met me!
August 6, 2007 at 10:14 am
Loved it! I can so relate! I recently had a similar experience with my husband on vacation although it involved him “just knowing” there was a gas station nearby and us almost running out of gas in the middle of West Va. with two kid & no food or water in 90 degree heat….I was a BIT nag-tastic myself!!
August 7, 2007 at 4:51 am
I do so love those predictable aspects of marriage, they’re comforting.