Say What You Mean

There is a song out there with a good message titled, "Let Your Yes Be Yes." I forgot the band name, my apologies. But the song talks about saying what you mean, and following through on what you say. It came to mind quite a bit during the events that transpired today.

I drove up about two hours to see my daughter at college. Ds and I had no problems on the drive, and enjoyed some time with dd before she had to head back to class. Then the plan was for ds and I to travel up to another town to meet dh for lunch. Okay, simple enough, we can do this. I've never done it before, but the directions sound easy enough. Both dd and dh gave me the same ones, so they must be right.

Heading out, I followed exactly what I was told. Turn right out of the college, follow it to the interstate, go down two exits, turn off, the pilot (truck stop) will be right there. The drive through the mountains, with it's busy curving roads was so pretty. I could feel my ears plugging up from the altitude changes. After a while, we came to a dead end road. Hmm....this wasn't mentioned. I thought about it, and made a turn, then drove a while. Nothing is looking like interstate here. Call dh, he has no idea where I am. Now when the truck driver can't locate you, you're lost. We turn on the GPS, and it routes us all the way back to the college, then on from there.

At this point, I'm getting tired, and very frustrated. Why did the GPS reroute me like that? I keep on going, and dh tells me when we get to the interstate, go under it. I get to that point, but there is no going under it, it's an overpass. I pull off the road, and have a meltdown. I call dh crying, telling him nothing is making sense, and I don't know where to go. He explains that he couldn't remember if it was an over or under pass, but the point he was making was to go past it, and not take the motorway. (as my GPS words it.) Sigh.

A few more miles, and I arrive at the truck stop for lunch. A trip that should have taken 20 minutes has taken over an hour. As we ate lunch, we discussed what went wrong. Apparently when both dh and dd told me to "turn right out of the college", that isn't what they meant. They meant turn left out of the college, go down to the light, then turn right. Somehow they expected me to know that. Then the whole fiasco with the over/under pass thing.

It would have been so much easier if I had been told, "Go down to the light, turn right, follow to the interstate." And "You'll come up to Interstate XYZ, don't take that one, take the ABC Interstate." Say what you mean, in simple terms, especially with directions. You can't assume people know anything, especially the directionally challenged. That would be me.

I guess it turned out okay, I did find where I was going, and made it home eventually. The whole thing was just so frustrating though. Say what you mean to say the first time, it saves a lot of grief.

God bless, Chela