Men and Directions

This past weekend Gary and I went to a small town about 30 miles south of where we live. One of his co-workers was celebrating her 60th birthday. When we got to the town I asked Gary what the address is. His response, "she lives by the water tower".

An innocent enough comment that made me wonder if he even knew where we were going. I headed toward the water tower. Here is the thing with landmarks, as you get closer to them they are harder to see. Why? Glad you asked. This area has many trees and it is summer so there are leaves on them making it impossible to see the water tower at all. "Just keep driving around" was Gary's advice.

After a while I asked, "Do you know how much gas costs per gallon right now?" His reply, "We'll find it soon." So I inquired if the sheet of paper that was the invitation had any kind of address on it. He informed it did not but it did have two phone numbers. I suggested we call one of the numbers to get the address but he said, "Oh, not yet. We can find it."

Sooooooo, he suggested we go back to the town square, which really is a town square because it is that small a town. He thought perhaps there might be "another water tower" somewhere. Those of you who know me, I'm sure can guess what I was thinking at this point but I resisted the urge to share it and prayed for patience and understanding. Guess what? There was NOT another water tower. BIG SURPRISE! But we were able to again see the water tower we couldn't see when we were too close.

This time were were smarter and watched carefully as the tower disappeared into the trees so we could guess how many blocks to go down before turning toward it. Eventually we were there, at the base of the water tower. Now the only challenge left was to drive around all the streets and guess which house the party was at. It didn't take too long until we turned down a street that had lots of cars parked on it. YEAH! Eventually we could see a big grill going and a big crowd in one of the backyards. However, I wondered why there wasn't a sign that said "Happy Birthday" or "Sue turns 60" or "RIP". Ever so gently I said I would wait in the car while Gary checked to see if this was the right place.

Uncomfortable with that he said "Let's keep driving". This time I couldn't keep the thoughts in my head out of my mouth. "WHAT? How about calling one of those numbers!!!!!!" While we discussed it we kept going down the street and soon saw another party going on. This time there were balloons in the front yard with "60" on them. YEAH, we were there!

Morale of the story: You really don't need to have directions or actually know where you are going as long as you have a man in the car who won't ask for directions and who doesn't care how much gas you waste trying to find the place.

Gotta love um!