Driving, Pirate Style

Alternative title: Glasses 1, Contacts 0.

So, a few weekends ago, I decided to go over to a friend's apartment and spend the night there, eating leftover food (probably pizza) and playing videogames. This sounds very cool on paper. However, just like Socialism, I had a few hiccups actually putting this plan in motion.

Problem A. The streets around here are terrible. And I mean that both ways. There are streets here where a four wheel drive and a high undercarriage are required to go down them. These streets aren't really streets, more like a collection of pot holes semi straight line between buildings that would break the Geneva Convention if they were used to house POWs. Yeah, it's not exactly a blast to drive through in my economy class car.

However, there is another subsidiary of problem A. That is the streets also don't make sense. I think the urban planners around here just paved over the local game trails, then got really, really smashed and started pasting one way signs, no turn signs at random. To say that it's confusing is an understatement. I think they actually based it off of the original blueprints of the labyrinth.

Makes you wonder if there is a Minotaur in the center of it all. Then you realize where the center is, and remind yourself that far scarier things live there.

Problem B. Map Quest. Now, Map Quest on the main has worked great for me. But, the one time it screwed up, it screwed up giving me directions to Disney World. You would think that that's impossible. You're wrong, as the poor cashier at the Walgreens somewhere near Orlando can testify. I must have walked in there like 20 times, asking directions each and every time. Margret, I am so sorry for all the trouble I must have caused you that night. I'd use your last name too, but your nametag didn't have it.

Well, eventually, I did get to Disney World, or what I assumed was Disney World because as I pulled up to a T intersection, next to a large produce truck filled with fresh illegal immigrants, the directions stopped.

There was nothing there. Just woods and a bunch of Mexicans in the truck. Then the truck pulled away, leaving me without a single "Chao" alone in the woods. But they must have been magical woods, because according to Map Quest, we were in Disney World!

Screw you, Map Quest. Screw you.

Despite these two problems, I set out on my merry way, confident that I'd make it to my friend's apartment somehow, even though I had no idea what it looked like. And, the crazy part was that I was making it all work. I was actually headed in the right direction and everything. Then, fate and disaster struck.

My eye itched, so I proceed to take both hands off the wheel, finish my text with one hand and rub my eye with the other. Well, as you contact users out there might know, it is possible to rub your contact out of your eye.

I proceeded to do just that. Normally, this is a medium grade problem. It usually gets caught on an eyelash, or on my cheek, and I stop what I'm doing and grab it and stick it back in, telling myself that sight is worth the burning pain of jabbing something that hasn't been coated in special fluid in your eye.

Everyone should feel that at least once. It really brings perspective into what you're willing to do in order to function properly.

Well, I somehow managed to get the precise, perfect rate and angle of rubbing, that I didn't just rub the contact out of my eye. I shot it into another dimension. Now, I (as you previous readers can testify) am not the sharpest chip on the block, but I did pull over to look for it.

There was no way in hell I was putting something that fell on the floor of my car back in my eye, but I checked anyway. It was nowhere to be found. Undeterred, I kept driving on, toward my destination.

Remember the part where I said I was using directions? How about the part where I don't know what his apartment looks like? Now I only have one usable eye. If I try to use both, one in focus, one so far out of focus it can occasionally pick up ultraviolet light, my brain implodes. If I use one, I lose my sense of peripheral vision and depth perception. Multiply that by trying to read directions and a map while driving and having no idea what your destination looks like.

Sounds fun, right?

At least his couch was really comfy. It was almost as good as a bed. Almost.