Where the Streets Have No Names

I never had dreams of raising the next National Geography Bee winner. (Well, okay, maybe a little. It’s always nice to raise a child who can successfully find the country we are currently at war with on a map. Of course, having one that can’t—because we aren’t at war—would be nice, too. But that’s a whole other dream.) But still, even though I never really dreamt of a child who could tell me the capital of Mongolia and which direction the Nile flowed (at least not without looking it up on their phones), I must admit that I did always sort of assume that once my kids got to be a certain age they would, at the very least, be able to tell me the name of the street on which they live.

Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh. They do know the name of the street they live on. Hopefully. But they certainly don’t know the names of the streets on either side of us. And they most definitely don’t know the name of any other street in Flagstaff at all.

In their defense, none of their friends do either. I realized this the first time I drove one of their friends home and they gave me directions that made them sound like some kind of living pirate map. “Turn left after the third tree,” they would say, or “It’s the house next to the big pile of rocks.” The fact that they were an interactive pirate map did not make these clues any more helpful. “Which tree?” I would ask. “The big one,” they would reply. “But not the biggest.” These kinds of “tree and rock” directions were especially unhelpful when I was driving through the woods after dark, which, unfortunately, describes the driving conditions about 99.9% of the time I was driving someone home.

What would usually end up happening was that, at some point during these increasingly frustrating peregrinations, I would simply stop and demand that they tell me what the address was and let me find it on my own. “Okay,” they would agree, the doubt heavy in their voices as they revealed the secret numbers (ingrained in them since kindergarten). And then that doubt would turn to amazement as I, using nothing but those numbers, would find their house. “How did you know where my street was?” they would ask me in awe. To which I would reply, with an equal amount of disbelief, “How could you think I would not?”

Still, I have to say that as jaw-dropping and annoying as their complete lack of street knowledge was before (not to be confused with street smarts, which they lack as well), it didn’t become totally frustrating until recently, when a great many of them started learning how to drive.

Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to drive with someone who has no idea what the names of the streets are? I mean, it’s bad enough when they are your passenger, trying to direct you, but when they are the driver and you are trying to direct them? Forget about it.

“Turn left on Leroux,” I’ll say, “and then left again on Cherry.”

“What?” they’ll respond, looking at me in confusion. (“Don’t look at me! Look at the road!”)

Never mind the fact that I have to remind them to stop at both stop signs—add in the part where I have to explain, at the last minute, which streets are Aspen and Cherry and it becomes a front seat full of screams and exasperations. “Turn! Here! Now! After you stop! Stop!”

It’s almost enough to make me become an interactive pirate map myself. Or, at least enough to make me start saying, “Arghh!”

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