# Really Bad Directions **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 9, 2009, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-bad-directions/492511 "2009-04-09T14:58:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-bad-directions/492511/41 "2009-04-11T17:22:55Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > i don’t see as to why not, I certainly got here from theyah … > > mrAru spent a fascinating 14 months duty stationed at Portsmouth Shipyard in Maine, made for some fun weekends, as one of our favorite passtimes is to head out with a cooler of munchies and **drive around aimlessly sightseeing** Code for “we got lost”.😃 ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-bad-directions/492511/42 "2009-04-11T18:24:20Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > Code for “we got lost”.😃 rofl=) Nope, not when you head out with snacks and a cooler, and intend to spend the day driving around=) It usually took the form of looking at a map, and seeing something that looks interesting and deciding to drive that direction =) I know we went to LL Beans once, took a jacket that was my grandmothers and got the zipper and a hole in the pocket fixed [a 1930s fire engine red hudson bay blanket jacket], and another time went there to get a pair of shoes for me and didnt get there but ended up almost to canada but on the plus side, we found a great bed and breakfast and had a great weekend=) ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-bad-directions/492511/43 "2009-04-11T18:45:17Z")
You know the small little dirt path on the left, up the road 5 miles, heading east and next to the haystack, just beyond the church and behind the grove of maple trees? You don’t want to take that road. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-bad-directions/492511/44 "2009-04-11T19:24:19Z")
My ex, in a classic argument with me: I had the kids and wanted to stop by a park, which was down a little road. I was on a cross road to the little road, and my wife knew the area well and had grown up there. From the car, with the kids, I call her…ring…ring…ring _“Hello?”_ “Hey, it’s me. Where is Washington Lake Park? I am on Hunter’s Road. What’s the entrance road near?” _Just go down Hunter’s Road, it’s on your left?_ How do you know it’s on my left? You don’t know which way on Hunter’s I am going! I didn’t get here from the house. We were out and about all day so I don’t know exactly where I got on Hunter’s road at" _“PHIL!!! If you are on Hunter’s, just keep going and you will see it on your left!”_ Annemarie, calm down. Listen, just tell me what it is near. You don’t know where I picked up Hunter’s at. I could be coming from the opposite direction, and it could be on my right. So just tell me what the entrance is near." _WHY CAN’T YOU JUST LISTEN TO ME?! IT’S ON YOUR LEFT!!! JUST KEEP GOING!!!_ Okay, I’ll explain later why I might not have to make a left, so just amuse me and tell me what to look for. What’s near the entrance? _YOU ARE SUCH AN AS-HOLE! CLICK._ -end phone call scenario Yeah. We’re divorced. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-bad-directions/492511/45 "2009-04-12T18:03:07Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Which reminds me of the story I heard in Ireland. > > A coworker’s granny used get to her house, and just to swerve across the road into her driveway without signalling. When the coworker gently suggested that this was pretty dangerous, granny replied: > > “Sure, why would I need to signal? Everyone knows where I live!” My uncle’s father used to drive down the laneway of his farm and pull out onto the highway without stopping. “Everyone knows I go into town this time every day!” ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-bad-directions/492511/46 "2009-04-13T06:41:58Z")
> [@Philster](#): > > My ex, in a classic argument with me: > > I had the kids and wanted to stop by a park, which was down a little road. I was on a cross road to the little road, and my wife knew the area well and had grown up there. > > From the car, with the kids, I call her…ring…ring…ring > > _“Hello?”_ > > “Hey, it’s me. Where is Washington Lake Park? I am on Hunter’s Road. What’s the entrance road near?” > > _Just go down Hunter’s Road, it’s on your left?_ > > How do you know it’s on my left? You don’t know which way on Hunter’s I am going! I didn’t get here from the house. We were out and about all day so I don’t know exactly where I got on Hunter’s road at" > > _“PHIL!!! If you are on Hunter’s, just keep going and you will see it on your left!”_ > > Annemarie, calm down. Listen, just tell me what it is near. You don’t know where I picked up Hunter’s at. I could be coming from the opposite direction, and it could be on my right. So just tell me what the entrance is near." > > _WHY CAN’T YOU JUST LISTEN TO ME?! IT’S ON YOUR LEFT!!! JUST KEEP GOING!!!_ > > Okay, I’ll explain later why I might not have to make a left, so just amuse me and tell me what to look for. What’s near the entrance? > > _YOU ARE SUCH AN AS-HOLE! CLICK._ > > -end phone call scenario > > Yeah. We’re divorced. Ha…you’re lucky! Wanna know how my conversation would have gone? Me: Hi Darling, how Do I get to the park from hunters? Her: HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU BEEN THERE. I’M NOT A MAP. FIND IT YOURSELF YOU f##%%ING IDIOT. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-bad-directions/492511/47 "2009-04-13T16:47:23Z")
Mom’s family had a story in which Grandpa was told, “…and, at the stop sign about four miles out, you’ll see a red house with the old judge a-settin’ on the porch. You just leave the judge a-settin’, then turn left after the crick. …” After we bumbled around in East St. Louis, Illinois, a town where most of the street signs have been stolen, we finally found the bridge we were looking for to cross the river into St. Louis, Missouri. Just past the bridge, if you obey all the signs, the only option is to keep turning until you’re back on the bridge, heading back to East St. Louis. On the next lap, I turned onto a street I was forbidden to enter. The hotel was half a block away.:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-bad-directions/492511/48 "2009-04-13T17:07:21Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Nope, not when you head out with snacks and a cooler, and intend to spend the day driving around=) > > It usually took the form of looking at a map, and seeing something that looks interesting and deciding to drive that direction =) > > I know we went to LL Beans once, took a jacket that was my grandmothers and got the zipper and a hole in the pocket fixed [a 1930s fire engine red hudson bay blanket jacket], and another time went there to get a pair of shoes for me and didnt get there but ended up almost to canada but on the plus side, we found a great bed and breakfast and had a great weekend=) See, you were doing well until you got to the end there. That started as “getting lost on purpose” and trailed off into plain ol’ “getting lost.” 😃 My husband has an excellent sense of direction, though when it’s a cloudy day it’s not quite as good. Strangely, he always seems to end up in Joliet (Chicago suburb) when his direction sense fails him during those times. So every now and then on a Sunday we’ll go driving around the area, exploring parts we haven’t been to before. Our standard joke is that we’ll be fine unless the sun goes away, in which case we’ll end up in Joliet, but at least he knows his way back from there. 🙂 > [@AskNott](#): > > After we bumbled around in East St. Louis, Illinois, a town where most of the street signs have been stolen, we finally found the bridge we were looking for to cross the river into St. Louis, Missouri. Just past the bridge, if you obey all the signs, the only option is to keep turning until you’re back on the bridge, heading back to East St. Louis. On the next lap, I turned onto a street I was forbidden to enter. The hotel was half a block away.:smack: That sounds like East Dubuque, Illinois. We were trying to check out the area before crossing over into Dubuque (Iowa), and the main street in town led you down what appeared to be a one-way-only area with a lot of dive bars and strip clubs. After looking around for what appeared to be a legal way to drive out of there, we had to go down a one-way street the wrong way. If they wanted you to eventually leave that strip, they sure didn’t do a good job of designating where that was. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-bad-directions/492511/49 "2009-04-13T18:58:02Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > See, you were doing well until you got to the end there. That started as “getting lost on purpose” and trailed off into plain ol’ “getting lost.” 😃 Well, we kept seeing signs for interesting stuff … and it kept leading us further and further northwest =) ---
**Author:** ![MissTake](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misstake/32/3189_2.png) [@MissTake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissTake)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-bad-directions/492511/50 "2009-04-13T19:01:24Z")
I had a barbeque up at our cabin moons before google maps and GPS. Gave what I thought were pretty good directions - Take 94 to (hole in the wall town). After you exit is a sign for County Road (whatever). Take that county road through the two stop signs until you get to the T. Left at the T, right at Highway (whatever). Go through (town) and (town), turn left at (lake name) Road and I’m the last cabin to the right. Pretty simple - freeway / county road / highway / lake road. They knew whereabout the cabin was and knew it was approximately an hour away. “You never told us the two stop signs were 20 miles apart!!!” “What did you mean ‘go through’ the towns?” “I turned on the lake road it forked to the left and the right - you didn’t say which way!” ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-bad-directions/492511/51 "2009-04-13T19:30:18Z")
Not crazy directions, but possibly a crazy way to give them. I was running late for work one day, and did not look forward to rolling in 30 minutes after I should have. Less than a block from my home, a guy pulls up in an SUV, and asks for directions somewhere. “Well, it’s… Um, you want to turn right at that light, then left at the, uh… and then you go about eight blocks, and turn right onto some street whose name I can’t remember, then… Tell you what. I work about a block from where you’re going, and I’m running late. If you give me a ride, I’ll guide you right to it.” The guy eyed me suspiciously, as if I were some maniac who walked around the city just waiting for victims to stop and ask me for directions. My murderous plan was ingenious, if not terribly prolific. Finally he got the logic of why I probably wasn’t going to cut him up into tiny bits, and told me to get into his car. The entire ride he looked at me as if I was about to attack him with a knife or a gun or a penis. When at last we got to my destination, I said “You can let me out here. The place you want to go is that big building right there.” I got out, feeling that my non-murderous tendencies would soon be vindicated when he discovered that I had, in fact, led him to where he had asked. I watched him drive away, and… …make a wrong turn that would put him back on the highway. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-bad-directions/492511.md?page=2)