Directions

Someday a bridge is going to collapse on me. Or a car will hit me at 120 mph and knock me off that bridge. A bus will veer off course and crash into the Chinese-Mexican restaurant (what an odd combination) that I will be eating in. Someday something like this will happen, and it's all because of a bad habit I started last year.

It started out as a simple Saturday. I was walking on the street with my comrade Catalina and a man approached us with a lost expression on his face. He asked me how to get to Broadway and, without thinking, I gave him completely wrong directions. While Broadway was actually only one and a half blocks south, I told this poor man that Broadway was actually four blocks east and two blocks north. Catalina greeted this lie with a disgusted expression and hurriedly told the man the correct directions. In response to his outraged expression, I then adopted an Asian accent and apologized saying, "Sorry, sorry! So sorry, very new, new!" and bowed.

The next time this happened I was by myself two weeks later. A small woman came up to me and quietly asked how to get to 8th Street. Since I was on 5th, it's quite obvious that 8th Street would be three blocks away, and in this case, in a northernly direction. With great effort I made sure that I did not make a sarcastic comment, and instead vented my anger by telling her that 8th was six blocks east. I didn't feel one speck of regret as she hobbled off with her stolen shopping cart.

Since that fateful day in January of last year, I've given exactly 39 wrong directions to 34 different people.
I'll be walking downtown and ask a person for directions how to get to Homer Street. The person will then proceed to tell me that Homer Street is seven blocks north and three blocks east when it is actually only four blocks south. I'll heed his directions and end up in East Hastings, where a car running at 120 mph will hit me and a bridge will fall on me simultaneously. A homeless man will then come up to me in my dying moments and ask me for directions to Burrard Street and I still won't give him the correct directions.