Exam Time

So a friend walks into a doctor’s office.   It’s her annual check-up.  She’s strong and healthy so this is just routine.  Right?  Wrong.

Seems she’s reached the magical age where not only her physical well-being is evaluated; her mental acuity is also going to go under the microscope.  To say that she was flustered and taken aback by that is an understatement.  Which explains the “off-by-a-century” answer to the question: “What is today’s date?”

Once she got over the terror, she did quite well.  As those of us who know her would have guessed.

She was cooking right along, spelling WORLD backwards, remembering her children’s and grandchildren’s birthdays, asking for clarification on the question “Who is our President?”  And so forth.

But then came the kicker.  The stumper.   The unanswerable question.

“What is the number and street address of this office?”

If you live here, you understand her complete surprise and inability to even come close to an answer.

We quickly learn that, around here, we get to where we’re supposed to go by first going to someplace we know.  Then we take a right (from it), or go three doors down (from it), or across the street (from it).  Directions are obscure, convoluted and always given in relation to something else.  Say a Sam’s, a Walmart, a Publix.

But a street name?  A number on a door?  Not our way of doing business.

But it works.  Somehow.

Sure, we could use our GPS, or ask Siri, but, really, what fun would that be?  Think of all the dead-end streets and illegal u-turns we’d miss out on.

So, as long as we know how to get to the place that’s sort of close to the place we’re going, we’ll get there.

Sooner or later.