Wit Stop

She Really Can't Read a Map, but She Can Detect Sarcasm

My wife and I recently drove from Los Angeles to visit friends in Phoenix. It's an enjoyable trip. It's fun for us to spot that first saguaro cactus, then a few more, then a proliferation of them tells us we're approaching Phoenix. It's kind of like the way a growing number of panhandlers tells you when you're nearing a bus terminal. I was driving east on Interstate 10, making good time, which is essential in visiting out-of-state friends. It's the compulsory conversational icebreaker: "Did you have any trouble finding the place?"

"Naw, and we made great time."

I asked my wife to check the road map to see how close we were and which exits immediately preceded ours. I didn't want to miss our offramp because it would waste valuable time and destroy our entrance: "Did you have any trouble finding the place?"

"Yes, and we made lousy time."

My wife was annoyed because she suffers from Aphobia (pronounced AAA-phobia), which is a fear of anything that unfolds and has an automobile club symbol on the cover. She opens a road map apprehensively, much the way President Clinton would open his current issue of the Rush Limbaugh newsletter.

"What am I supposed to be looking for?" she asked.

I told her.

She said, "I don't even know where to start looking for that."

I said, "This is just a wild guess, but it might be somewhere near that trail of green magic marker ink that the nice clerk at the auto club drew on the map for us."

I knew as I said it that it was the wrong thing to say. My spouse may not be much at reading a map, but she's a whiz at detecting sarcasm.

Now she was defensive. "See, this is what I hate about road maps. We're only going to one place. Why do they have to have so many other places on them?"

My wife wants her maps not only more simplified, but personalized as well. If we're going to Grandma's house, she wants nothing on her map but Grandma's house, a hill, and some woods. That she could read. Over the hill, through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go.

Now if Grandma and Grandpa have had a falling out and are now separated or divorced, we'd need two maps. Automobiles would have to be manufactured with walk-in glove compartments to store all the maps.

I noticed that the saguaro cactus population was getting denser; we must have been near our cutoff.

I said, "We're getting close. If you don't find it soon, we'll be past our exit."

She said, "I'm sorry, but I can't read a map while the car is moving."

I said, "If the car is sitting still, we don't need a map to find out where we're going. We're not going anywhere. That's why they call them road maps, not sitting-bythe-side-of-the-road maps."

Neither one of us said much for several miles after that. My wife was pouting, and I was feeling somewhat guilty. I had asked her to do something demanding for a woman read a road map. Hardly anyone can name more than five or six famous women navigators. And she did honestly try. Heck, I have one friend whose wife is a dyslexic road map reader. She can tell him where they've been, but she can't tell him how to get where they're going.

We came to our exit, and I turned off with no trouble.

My wife said, "There now, you found your precious offramp. Are you happy?"

I said, "Yes, dear, I am." And I was because we were making good time. I should have left well enough alone, but I didn't. I said, "I'm sorry, but I'd just like to know why you can never find anything on a road map."

She said, "For the same reason you can never find anything when you look for it in the refrigerator."

Rather a sexist remark, don't you think?