Where am I?

There is no way I can write this to give the situation justice. The child gets lost. I have always said she can't find her bum with a mirror. I thought I had no sense of direction. At least I can generally locate myself when I am within our tri-county area and find my way home. I know north from east. I get lost, but I find myself. She gets lost. Period.

Saturday evening I had my 11-year-old niece with me and we were out running errands. We were getting hungry, but needed to finish up a few stops. My cell phone rang, and the child was lost.

Save me.

She tells me she had written directions from her friend and took 26 Mile Road as directed to another street, turned left, then right, and could I direct her to a street in an apartment complex? Of course, I had never been there and never took the route she took because it goes two miles out of the way to avoid a short stretch of dirt road. So she has no idea where she is and wants me to tell her where she is and how to get some place I never heard of.

She also had no idea what city she wanted to get to, and the intersection covered three different cities in two counties. Of course.

Alrighty then. I asked if she passed the two roundabouts. She said yes. I told her to go back to the second one and try again staying on 26 Mile instead of turning and going out of her way. She started to get mad. She wanted to find a road crossing 26 Mile that I was pretty sure didn't cross it. She said she would try again and call me back.

She called again, several times. I directed her to where some stores and restaurants were near her and told her to ask someone. On the next call I suggested she find a police station for directions. She tried both ideas, no one could direct her. The person she was going to see was not at home and did not have a cell phone. Child was to drop off her cat there, so I had an interest in getting her where she needed to be.

After about the 10th call we were in the grocery store and just leaving. I told her I would call her back when I got home, half a mile away. I went home, got online on MapQuest and tried to help her out. She said she didn't have an address, just the name of an apartment complex and I couldn't find it. She finally found a street name. I couldn't find it. My niece suggested trying the name as two words, which worked. The streets she wanted do not intersect. I found her destination.

Meanwhile child went to get gas in her car and clean up the cat poop out of her car.

She called back and I gave her directions while she was on the phone. Very explicit directions, since I know her. I made her stay on the phone until she could see the apartment. She said the key was under the mat and she thought she had the correct address. I told her to call me when she had the key in her hand, since she had to keep her phone plugged in because the battery was low. She called me back and she had the right apartment.

We carefully went over the route home. She showed up 2 hours later.

At no time was she more than 5 miles from where she has lived with her boyfriend for the last year.

She refuses to carry maps. Why would she need any? She called me once when I was in Toronto to get directions. Sigh.