Answer #33 - I use my Spidey Sense

Well, after all the hullaballoo (?), maybe 3 inches of snow, and all of it in my yard.  None in Wisconsin, hardly any in Illinois... strange...  Adventure Boy wins this battle (oh, but not the war..)

On these road trips, Adventure Boy does most of the driving because my sense of direction is desperately inaccurate.  This is because I have the ability to convince myself of the truth of a thing, despite much evidence to the contrary.

So how does someone with no sense of direction get anywhere driving?  Ever? 

I once drove 10 miles on a road at nearing 5:00pm in the mid-Autumn, with the sun directly to my left above the tree line, convinced I was going South.  Despite the fact that the sun was on my left.  So I clearly couldn't be going South.  But, well, I knew I was because I had a clear memory that my destination was to the south and on this particular road, and, proceeded to drive 10 miles, and of course said destination was not there, where I had driven - 10 miles to the NORTH - and there is much of me that remains enigmatic.  To me, I mean. 

Anyway - this Western & Northern trip included two good shows -  Nice people... my favorite part of the whole thing - the cool people along the way.  This time one of them a Philosophy Professor at Southern Illinois - edited a series of funny books: 'South Park and Philosophy,' 'Bruce Springsteen and Philosophy', 'The Wizard of Oz and Philosophy,'  'The Grateful Dead and Philosophy' - you get the idea.  An academic press that's encouraging ordinarily stuffy intellectuals to have a little pop culture fun.  Gotta like that.

Tried to listen to an episode of This American Life in replace of crap pulp fiction today - and it's a great show - don't get me wrong - but this particular episode involved an 80-year-old Italian immigrant man whose neighborhood had succumbed to economic fall-out some years ago, and who had, by a series of small, badly miscalculated steps, become relegated to a cramped room in his own home - a place that has since been taken over by junkies, rats (actual rats) prostitutes, buckets of human waste, pimps and dealers.  He was articulate, he was stoic - he was lucid.  He hadn't been to the 2nd story of his own home since 1992.  I couldn't bear it.  I wanted to turn the car to the East and go get him out of there.  Get them all out of there.  Even the rats.  I hear they make good pets.

Yeah, I know - you're wondering would I use my Spidey Sense to defy the GPS, in the sure knowledge that my instincts would lead me in the direction of EAST?

Probably.

But I needed to get home, so, you know, I had to put the crap pulp fiction back on. 

For a while.  And then I turned it off and just drove.  South.  Like the GPS said I should.

In the end, Adventure Boy didn't even need to shovel the driveway.