I’m Lost Without You

An essay about the downside of creativity…

So here’s what I got out of my trip to Phoenix: this might be like asking a flea to describe the elephant he lives on because I’m definitely not viewing this from 20,000 feet, but to me – in the brief time I spent there – Phoenix is incredibly confusing and apparently there’s a state law that every time you leave your hotel you have to drive on a minimum of three freeways, at least one of which will be open when you go one direction, but closed for construction when you try to come back the same way.

A point of view that the lady at the rental car company totally agreed with because when I gave the car back she asked how my week had been and I said “confusing,” she said yeah, if you don’t have GPS in Phoenix you’re definitely going to get lost.

So let’s start there.

As I’ve occasionally said before, people think being “creative” is a good thing and sounds wonderful right up until those naïve people have a relationship with a “creative” person and find out being “creative” means the “creative” person is not paying any attention to things like birthdays and anniversaries or when taxes are due because mentally they’re elsewhere, trying to think up a new and original way to say Donald Trump is a horse’s ass for the 473^rd time or barring that, how the universe works.

And yes, I just compared myself to Albert Einstein.

According to the internet, Einstein liked to sail, but had a poor sense of direction. Al ran aground so often, he kept a pencil and pad of paper with him so he could write down his thoughts while he waited for help. He also had trouble remembering dates and his own phone number, so it sounds like me and every cartoonist I’ve ever known (they all have very efficient and slightly pissed-off spouses) are in good company.

Just in case you don’t believe me, here’s an Independent article with the headline:

“Being forgetful isn’t stupid – it helps make smarter decisions, scientists say”

With the subhead:

“It’s important that the brain forgets irrelevant details and instead focuses on the stuff that’s going to help make decisions in the real world”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/forgetful-helps-make-smarter-decisions-study-scientists-memory-learning-a7801371.html

Just in case you didn’t read the article; basically, a bunch of scientists decided being forgetful was actually an indication of just how smart they are and it’s not their brain malfunctioning, it’s actually their brain examining a fact (like when you’re second cousin is getting married) and deciding it’s irrelevant and throwing that “fact” overboard.

There’s also a distinct undercurrent of: “so get off our backs because we’re thinking about really important stuff and your second cousin’s wedding didn’t qualify.”

So next time you forget to bring home that gallon of milk or pick up your kid from soccer practice, don’t say you’re sorry; instead point out that you have bigger mental fish to fry (like saving America from a second Trump presidency) and your spouse’s petty concerns are beneath you.

But just like Einstein, keep a pencil and pad handy so you can write down the name of a good divorce lawyer because make that I’m Above-All-This argument once too often and you’re definitely going to need one.

So Where Were We? Right…Lost Without GPS

The Not-Paying-Attention-Because-I’m-Thinking-Of-More-Important-Stuff probably explains why I hadn’t previously noticed that my Google Maps app had somehow decided all on its own that I didn’t need a voice telling me where to go and written directions would be sufficient.

So when I first arrived in Phoenix and left the Sky Harbor Airport to find my Sky Harbor Airport-adjacent hotel it said it would take me 11 minutes and yet I got to see the outskirts of Tucson.

In one of God’s Practical Jokes (which include stopping hair from growing on your head at just about the same time it starts growing out your ears) my vision has done a 180 because when I was a kid I needed glasses for distance and could see up close, but now my distance vision is 20-20 while I need reading glasses with the approximate magnification power of the Hubble Telescope to read a menu in a restaurant.

Or…to read the miniscule type on my phone, which was telling me how to find my hotel.

So I’ve got my reading glasses down on the end of my nose, trying to read the directions and then looking up occasionally to see what freeway exit I just missed, which is why it took me about 45 minutes to make an 11-minute trip and I got to travel through neighborhoods that would make a member of either the Crips or Bloods feel anxious.

Me and My Phone Make Up

So I’m finally in my hotel and decide I need to re-establish speaking relations with my phone and Google how to do that and enter the murky underworld of my smartphone’s “settings” and by randomly trying things, get my Google Maps app to start talking to me again.

Which is a good thing because I have to go back to the airport the next night to pick up my best friend, who’s joining me on my spring training trip. As a test, I enter my location and destination, “Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport” and my phone asks which terminal?

Wait, there’s more than one terminal?

(Remember, I’m “creative” so I didn’t notice that fact when I arrived at the airport 24 hours earlier.) Now here’s a diagram of either the Phoenix airport terminal or the wiring required to make an atomic bomb explode.

So I text my friend and ask “which terminal?” and he doesn’t know so apparently he’s “creative” too.

Next I reenter my location and destination because it’s time to start driving so I randomly pick Terminal 1 and my Google Maps play-by-play announcer is telling me where to go, but then a text comes in and I figure my friend is telling me which terminal to drive to, so I check my texts which somehow reverts my Google Maps to written instructions only and I miss my exit and get to revisit the outskirts of Tucson.

Every time I figure out how to make Google Maps talk to me again, my friend sends me another text and every time I look at one it somehow turns off Google Maps voice direction and he’s dribbling out information like he’s experiencing enhanced interrogation at Abu Ghraib:  

“Arrived.”

“Terminal 4.”

“Gate 1.”

And every time I check another text I lose voice directions, but through the highly-scientific process of visiting every goddamn terminal in Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, I eventually wander across Terminal 4 and start looking for Gate 1.

Which doesn’t exist.

So now I call my friend and say there is no Gate 1 and he says I’m crazy because he’s standing directly under the Gate 1 sign.

Turns out, all the even-numbered gates are on one side of Terminal 4 and all the odd-numbered gates are on the other side of Terminal 4, a system which makes sense if your Tom Cruise’s brother in Rain Man.

Through a series of phone calls and personal insults we establish that we’re actually on different sides of Terminal 4, so I circle the building and when I get on the correct side it looks like Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War because one of the many things I forgot to check is that it’s spring break and everybody is trying to leave the airport at once.

(The oversight is clearly not my fault because, once again, I’m “creative.”)

So now I’m three lanes away from the sidewalk and we’re on the phone and spot each other and I tell him he needs to run through traffic dragging his suitcase because I can’t get any closer.

He runs through traffic, ignoring honking horns, and tries to throw his suitcase in the back seat, but the back door is locked. So he yells unlock it and I say I don’t know which button does that because I just got the rental car and didn’t check all the controls (I blame my astounding “creativity” for that oversight) and it’s too dark to see which button does what, so I tell him to just jump in the front seat and hold his suitcase on his lap and that’s how we left the airport.

And missed our exit for the hotel and wound up in the outskirts of Tucson.

To Summarize…

For the next four days we would have been totally lost with Google Maps, which is an amazing app, but I’ve got some ideas for improvements:

1. Don’t start the driving directions with instructions like: “Head South.” If I was either Lewis or Clark and knew where South was I probably wouldn’t need my phone to tell me how to get to a “liquor store near me.”

2. Google Maps also needs a “talkative” option, because me and my friend talked over the phone instructions on more than one occasion and missed exits and made three more unnecessary trips to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. So if the car’s occupants are talking loudly, Google Maps needs to announce the instructions at a higher volume, like: “HEY, LOUDMOUTH! TAKE EXIT 3A IN 400 FEET!” I know Google can do this because it would warn me of stalled vehicles ahead and once told me about an “object in the road” so Google is keeping a pretty close eye on all of us and there’s no reason they can’t be listening in and if they can suggest alternate routes, they could also advise us that it’s way too soon to be making yet another trip to that liquor store.

And finally…

3. Google Maps needs a setting that reminds us our plane leaves in an hour so if we’re going to get there two hours before departure like we’ve been advised to, we need to start constructing a time machine.

Which shouldn’t be a problem because – never forget – I’m “creative.”