Car Troubles

It all started with lab coats.

Every time I’m lost, I turn down the music. It doesn’t matter where, or when—if I’m lost in my car, the music goes down, and my heart rate goes up.

I'm horrible at following the directions of a GPS.

I’m even worse at giving directions to someone else on how to get somewhere.

Don’t even get me started on maps.

This week’s prompt made me think less of a narrative in a book/movie sense and more of a narrative from person to person in order to achieve a goal—in my case, reaching a destination by car. If I’m walking around in an unknown area, I can gather my bearings much easier than if I’m travelling down the road in an unknown part of Texas, or a random town in New York. I think it might be because when I’m walking on my own, I can gather my bearings easily; I don’t have to pull over on the side of the road, stop, and look at a GPS that might be leading me the wrong way (or the longer way) to my destination. There’s more autonomy with walking than with driving a car. Especially when you have passengers with you.

 Either way, I’m dead-set on the belief that one of my personal hells contains me in a room, giving driving directions to someone else, and being utterly and completely wrong. 

Unfortunately, I’ve lived through this hell a few times. The worst experience I’ve had with driving and directions happened four years ago in Austin.

Rooster Teeth, a popular animation company, holds an annual convention each summer in the heart of downtown Austin, where people are rampant and parking is scarce. My best friend Erin and I had bought tickets and were anxious because during this convention we were going to meet the legendary Slo Mo Guys.

The Slo-Mo Guys, Gavin and Dan, are best friends who record different activities in slow motion. Some examples are: a trashcan fire tornado, a water-filled condom falling on Dan’s head, gunshots under water, and more. A defining characteristic of their videos is that both of them wear lab coats; Gavin’s is impeccably clean, while Dan’s is torn, painted, and disheveled. I don’t remember how the idea came up, but Erin and I agreed that we had to find lab coats to wear when we met Gavin and Dan.

Which lead us to getting in a car to drive around downtown Austin to find a store that sold lab coats. Erin used Google Maps and searched “lab coats near me”. Three places came up: Walmart, a medical supplies store, and a general store. Each one of them were located somewhere near downtown Austin. So, we drove to Wal-Mart first. Luckily, it was close to our hotel. Sadly, Wal-Mart was fresh out of lab coats.

So, we went with option two. This is where the argument began. Google Maps was telling us to go in a completely different direction than the direction it gave us thirty minutes prior, while we were researching prospective stores. At this point, we had been driving/shopping for an hour and a half.

Erin chimes in, “I think this is the right way….” as we navigated the gravelly, winding back roads of Austin.

“You think it’s the right way? Or you know?” I knew both of us hated driving, and we’re both directionally challenged, so the more time we spent on the road meant more confusion for both of us.

“I’m….ah. Yeah, we’re…..lost.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.” Her lips popped as she answered my question and, barely, missed hitting a curb. We pulled into a parking lot and stared down at her phone. After doing some snooping, we found out that, yes, Google Maps had been leading us in the wrong direction and neither one of us had thought to double check it. I turned down the music, rubbed my forehead, and I asked, “Can I drive?”

“Why? You want to?”

“Well,” I paused. “We’ve been gone a while, and I’d like to find lab coats before it gets dark and crazy downtown.”

“I didn’t mean for us to get lost!” Erin immediately started getting nervous and looking down—a tell-tale sign she was feeling guilty.

“You should’ve double checked the directions!” My temper snapped. She hadn’t checked her phone once.

“It said turn right and you told me left!” Erin sighed and pointedly explained, “I know you’re tired, but c’mon girl. You’re my guide, here.” I didn’t double-check it, either. Yanking her phone from the console, I looked at the directions. My eyes went wide; I had told her to go left at a vital intersection instead of right, which lead us to our current location at a dinky parking lot in the middle of the woods.

Hiding the directions with my hand, I scoffed “Well, you’re the one driving.”

“And you’re the one supposed to be helping me drive! How’re we supposed to get there if you don’t tell me the right way to go!” Erin’s hands were spread out in a “what’s-a-mother-to-do” motion, and I had begun pinching the bridge of my nose. She was right, and I was right. Both of us should have double-checked the directions earlier, and while we were getting there.

We sat there for a minute, Alt-J playing low on the radio. “Are we really arguing over stupid lab coats?”

Erin chuckled while brushing her hair out of her face. “No, we’re arguing because we’re both too reliant on a computer telling us where to go instead of doing it ourselves. Way to go, us!”

I glanced at the clock. It was 4:46 p.m. “Crap, we need to hurry.” Both of us knew if we didn’t find these lab coats, we’d be depressed the rest of the night.

“Alright, have a go at it.” We switched seats, and Erin pulled up the address of the third place on our list.

“Okay, so when you leave this lot you need to turn right and then go five miles ‘till you get to Wash—oh dang it!”

“What?” My patience was wearing thin. “What’s wrong?”

“The store closes at 5.”

My hand grips the wheel. “How far away is it?”

“Uh,” Erin glanced down at her phone, and said “twenty minutes away.”

I quickly put the car in drive, and sped out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell.

We made it at 4: 58, and the managers of the store were nice enough to let us come in and get our lab coats. The rest of the night was spent coloring, designing, and prepping our lab coats for the next day.

Our trials and tribulations were worth it.

Gavin and Dan loved our coats and signed them. Erin and I learned that taking a step back, and thoroughly looking at directions before as well as during a car trip is the best way to go about not getting lost, or into petty arguments. Car troubles aside, RTX was a pretty memorable trip.