Story for my Sister #6

“17 West Park,” she said. “Quickly, please.”

“17 West Park,” I repeated, half out of habit, half because it sounded somehow familiar. I popped the address into the navigation machine and proceeded to ignore its instructions. I knew my way around.

A half an hour later I found out that I did not, in fact, know my way around – something my fare was not shy about pointing out.

“I’m sorry, but are we going to be there soon?” She said.

Before I could answer, the computer chimed in, “You have missed your turn. Turn left at the next light.”

“Look sweetheart, we’re almost there,” I said, staying mostly in my lane as I tried to catch the street names.

She sighed a long, audible sigh. The kind of sigh that exasperated women do to show you that they’re displeased. “Why don’t you just do what the navigation things says?”

“You missed your turn,” said the computer again, on cue, “Please turn around.”

“Look, it wants me to do a U-turn,” I said throwing my hand in the air. The kind of arms throwing I do when I want to show people that I don’t know what the fuck. “Damn computer wants me to break the law.”

“I’m not paying for the extra mileage,” she said as she crossed her arms and turned her entire body away from me to look out the window.

I kept going for a couple more blocks before making a U-turn. A few more turns, a couple around-the-blocks, and just one more U-turn was all it took to arrive at 17 West Park Street.

As soon as I stopped the lady flung open the door retorting, “It’s about time.”

“Twenty-nine-fifty,” I said.

She halted, turned and glared with a look that might turn a caring man to stone. “I’m fifteen minutes late because of you. You should be thankful enough that I’m not having you fired.” She slammed the door and swiftly glided away.

I checked the clock and was shocked to realize that I, too, was fifteen minutes late for my interview. I grabbed a slew of papers from the glove box and fumbled through them to find a crumpled post-it note reading: Third Floor, 17 West Park St. The next thing that came out of my mouth was, “Shit” – the kind of “Shit” that people say when the immediate future looks pretty grim.