Thursday, September 3, 2009

My Little GPS


Small Bob and I had plans to meet Mary and her son Ivan at the Natural History Museum. We left a little early but still hit some traffic in downtown. After we finally made it off of the 110 onto the 10, the traffic lightened up but we were still running a few minutes late. We exited at La Brea and then cruised up to Wilshire, pulled into the parking lot, paid our $9.00 and then climbed the mile or so of steps to get over the hill and then down another flight to arrive at the entrance. As I looked up at the museum’s impressive façade, I realized that we were standing in front of the George C. Page Museum at the LaBrea Tar Pits in Mid-Wilshire, not the Natural History Museum which is near downtown, 9 miles and 25 minutes away.

I have never been a fan of the term “brain fart,” in fact it has long been a peeve of mine, along with the phrase “It’s all good,” the Rachel Ray-ism “EVOO” and the word “peeve.” But a "brain fart" is what it was, stinky and annoying. The worst was breaking the news to three-year-old Bob. Whenever he gets an inkling that I have made a wrong turn, the backseat driving begins. A mistake of this magnitude would be epic.

“Bob, we have to go back to the car. We are at the wrong museum.”

“We are at the wrong museum? What did you do?”

“Just get in the car. Let’s hurry. Mary and Ivan are waiting for us at the other museum.”

“You are turning around? We are lost?”

“We aren’t lost, I just went to the wrong place.”

“I don’t know how to go there! What is the name of this street? You are making a left? No! No! Go the other way!”

“Bob, you don’t know where we’re going, you’ve never been there before. This is La Brea.”

“We are lost! You have to call Daddy! Where we are going next?”

“We are getting back on the freeway and going towards downtown.”

“No! Go west! Go west!”

“Bob, I will remind you that you don’t even know what that means and also we need to go east.”

“No! We are very lost!

“We are not lost.”

“WEST!”

“If you will drop it I will get you an ice cream at the museum.”

“Which museum? Do you know how to get there? Can I have cherry?”

5 comments:

  1. Oh my gosh! He sounds just like the GPS I borrowed from my dad! Whenever I made a wrong turn, she'd holler at me just like that!

    lol.

    I hope you all had fun.

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  2. Dear Bob,

    You are three. Your shoes are on the wrong feet and your shirt is inside out. Stop bugging Mommy. She needs all of her mental faculties to find her way home.

    (P.S. Make sure her shoes on put on right.)

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  3. Almost did the same thing this morning! Thanks Smacksy! And for the record, Bob is usually right.

    Karen Peterson

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  4. My kids never buy the "no, we are not lost, we are just in the wrong place" either. Total pandemonium ensues...

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  5. I laughed so hard when I read this. It does sound like the GPS used when we were in WI Dells last week. She got distracted when a grasshopper flew in the window and drove 20 miles the wrong way. It kept saying "Turn around now! Turn around!"

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