Wifey's Not So Excellent Adventure

Wifey has lived in Florida most of her life, certainly for all of her DRIVING life. She's been everywhere in the state, and even attended FSU for one year, all the way up in Tally. As far as I know, when she was at FSU, she even drove home to Miami once or twice.

D1 is a senior at UF. Although Wifey's bad back prevented many trips to Gainesville to see her daughter, she's still made that trip at least 10 times over D1's 3 plus years away.

Wifey was just in Naples with me 2 months ago.

From Miami, one can drive essentially 3 ways: north, south, and west. If you drive east, in very little time, you hear a big splash.

Well, somehow, someway, I got a most disturbing phone call yesterday, about 2 hours after Wifey and D2 left on a road trip to Gainesville. "I think we're lost."

Unthinkable! Before Wifey left, I handed her (no --better --placed into her console) a Garmin GPS. She asked me how to get to UF. I thought she was kidding, but I still dutifully emailed her the following directions: "Turnpike North to end. I-75 North to Gainesville (first of 3 exits for D1's house)."

I thought this was fool proof. I was wrong.

She entered the Turnpike, and soon saw a sign that said "I75 North." She forgot that the Turnpike is about 265 miles long (remember "to end?"). Wifey took the exit and was on her way WEST, across the Everglades!

Now, I'm really annoyed at her passenger, too. D2 has made many trips to UF, and only half heartedly protested that seeing alligators, wading birds, and and endless horizon of the "River of Grass," didn't "look right."

D2 is far smarter than I am. She's at least as good a writer, and is getting an A in Calculus! She's being recruited by Ivy League colleges. She's amazing!

But, I guess she's never paid too much attention to directions, either. In this age of GPS, I guess that along with Calculus and numerable AP classes, one doesn't necessarily learn, in one's own state, which way is, literally, up.

Anyway -- Wifey made her SECOND major mistake --she called me from a gas station off of I-75, to tell me this. It was another in a series of living out the old joke about the Jewish telegram I no longer find funny: "Start worrying. Stop. Details to follow. Stop."

As a paranoid, personal injury lawyer (semi retired) who lives in his head with all of his worries and anxieties, who still sees his family decapitated in his sick brain each time he hears a passing ambulance, this was not a good call to get.

I immediately invisioned Wifey and D2 pulling off the highway in Tampa, into one of Dwight Gooden's old neighborhoods (to say this in a politically correct way) to ask for directions to Gainesville. I summoned the scene from "Vacation" where Chevy Chase asks directions in East St. Louis, as the locals steal parts off of his family fun wagon.

And so I yelled. Wifey, as Wifey is wont to do, started explaining herself, somehow justifying why she drove west (and continued for over 100 miles!) instead of north, and, implying, as she does, that somehow she shouldn't have even been called upon to do something as exotic and strenuous and taxing as driving to Gainesville without me there!

Well, the two peripatetic (that's a word I learned in law school!) sojourners made it back to I-75 just fine, and I called back to apoligize for blowing my top.

And, about 7 1/2 hours later, they rolled into Gainesville. LAst time I made the drive, it was just over 5 hours.

So, Wifey and the Ds are all happily together, with our grand dog. I've lost, probably, no more than 2 or 3 years of life due to the worrying.

I blew off steam by telling Mike what happened. And Dr. Barry, who absolutely refused to believe that I wasn't, like our favorite writer Dave Barry, "making this up."

Mike told his daughter Amanda, who texted D2 something about her "detour."

And so Wifey and I continue our relentless decline into senility. I guess it's my turn, now, to do something brainless. Maybe I screwed up our plane reservations for our planned NC Fall trip. I'm going to go double check. Last time I went to Asheville, on business, I booked my return for the SAME DAY as my arrival, and ended up spending a full day at the Raleigh/Durham airport.

But, in my defense, I never lost sight of one fact: Miami, my home, lay to the south.