Note: When you give me directions...

[Ellie]

just for a moment try to imagine that I did not grow up in this city and so don't know every landmark and random street. That is all.:glare:

[Jean in Newcastle]

Turn at the white fence - you know the one that used to be white when the Johnson's had it - before the new owners tore down the fence and put in a hedge. . .

[SonshineLearner]

Best gift my dh ever gave me was adding the gps part to my phone. Excellent... wonderful... lovely... best friend!! You can get a refurbished one for around $100. I save that from just saving gas:-)

Carrie:-)

[Ellie]

Turn at the white fence - you know the one that used to be white when the Johnson's had it - before the new owners tore down the fence and put in a hedge. . .

Don't make me come over there and hurt you!:lol:

[Jean in Newcastle]

Don't make me come over there and hurt you!:lol:

 

That threat only works if you can find me! (hint: turn at the street with the mustard yellow house, the salmon colored one and the bright blue one. This is the unfortunate truth by the way!)

[Carol in Cal.]

That threat only works if you can find me! (hint: turn at the street with the mustard yellow house, the salmon colored one and the bright blue one. This is the unfortunate truth by the way!)

 

 

You're missing the most crucial part of these instructions:

Turn at the street that used to have that salmon colored house, but now it's another color, oh wait, you can't get there from here. Just go back.

Edited September 21, 2009 by Carol in Cal.

[KidsHappen]

No, no. Ya gotta go down the road a piece to the house with the pig in the yard and then turn left and go on to ya see the fork in the road, go to the right and turn at the first bridge. If ya come to a house with a buffalo in the yard then ya done gone too far and you have to turn around and go back because that road run into the lake but you know don't worry about it because . . . you can't miss it. :001_huh:

[Ibbygirl]

Best gift my dh ever gave me was adding the gps part to my phone. Excellent... wonderful... lovely... best friend!! You can get a refurbished one for around $100. I save that from just saving gas:-)

Carrie:-)

 

Ay, I want one of those so bad. I am so directionally challenged that I get lost even going places that I know how to get to. :001_huh:

[Scarlett]

No, no. Ya gotta go down the road a piece to the house with the pig in the yard and then turn left and go on to ya see the fork in the road, go to the right and turn at the first bridge. If ya come to a house with a buffalo in the yard then ya done gone too far and you have to turn around and go back because that road run into the lake but you know don't worry about it because . . . you can't miss it. :001_huh:

 

Hee hee....southern speak.

[Tap]

I thought it was by the field that Bobby Joe found that 2 headed catfish in after the flood in 84. There was something wrong with Bobby Joe, you know, he wasn't quite right after the lightn'. Then go past that tree that the school kids planted for that made up holiday, what do they call it ....Earth holidDay, or somtun like like. Keep going past the old ball field.....you know that is where old Mayer Lyons, got his nickname, Loosey Lyons.....that is a funny story, let me tell you it all started when he figured out he was double jointed in his left shoulder, but not his right....

[chaik76]

I thought it was by the field that Bobby Joe found that 2 headed catfish in after the flood in 84. There was something wrong with Bobby Joe, you know, he wasn't quite right after the lightn'. Then go past that tree that the school kids planted for that made up holiday, what do they call it ....Earth holidDay, or somtun like like. Keep going past the old ball field.....you know that is where old Mayer Lyons, got his nickname, Loosey Lyons.....that is a funny story, let me tell you it all started when he figured out he was double jointed in his left shoulder, but not his right....

:lol:

[elegantlion]

I loved this one from our old town....you drive by church with the ducks in the pond..:lol::lol: In a town of 75,000 people, like I'm supposed to know which one that is.

[unsinkable]

What's even worse is if you ask for directions & there is more than one direction-giver and...

 

THEY ARGUE ABOUT THE BEST WAY! :lol:

 

"You don't want to take her that way!?"

 

"Why would you send her down that road?"

 

:001_huh:

[mrsrevmeg]

We took a kid home after a youth trip Saturday night. He said "go like your going to Scottsboro" Uhm....okay, like I KNOW what that means. Fortunately, there was a sign where you turn to go to Scottsboro. From there I asked where now? He said "you know Johnson Electric is?" "No" "Ain't you ever been to Scottsboro?" "No" He said "Well, I don't know how to tell you get there. Drive slow and I'll tell you when to turn." :glare: I have never seen a kid (7th grader) that could not give better directions than THAT to their house!!!

[mommaduck]

Goodness, that sounds like around here! I need a GPS desperately.

[Carrie12345]

What's even worse is if you ask for directions & there is more than one direction-giver and...

 

THEY ARGUE ABOUT THE BEST WAY! :lol:

 

"You don't want to take her that way!?"

 

"Why would you send her down that road?"

 

:001_huh:

 

I'm guilty of arguing with myself about that!

There's an "easy" way to get to our house and a "confusing" way to get to our house. The easy way is longer, and there are almost no street signs or landmarks on the shorter route. I can never decide which way to send people!

[Melinda in VT]

Turn at the white fence - you know the one that used to be white when the Johnson's had it - before the new owners tore down the fence and put in a hedge. . .

 

Ah, yes. "Used to be." I heard that phrase an awful lot when receiving directions in Rhode Island.

 

And then there was "Go north on West Main and turn by the Dunkin' Donuts." Uhm, which Dunkin' Donuts? There are only, what, four of them on West Main?:tongue_smilie:

[Happy]

Ah, yes...when we moved to a very small town as newlyweds, I noticed there were few streetsigns. All the directions were go left by Bryan Samuel's old house. Or go right at the corner where the Blake's used to live. Some of those folks had been gone from the town for ten years or more.

 

My favorite was getting WRITTEN directions that told me to turn left on the highway where the barn burned down. Evidently, there used to be burned wreckage still visible...nope, not when I went through there. Some neat freak had scooped the stuff up and tidied up. Imagine.

 

:lol:

[Garga]

Our town's newsletter (it's not big enough to be a paper--comes out 4 xs a year) reads that you can drop off your lawn cuttings in the field by the old Hardy place. No address.

 

Women give weird directions. Men just say, "Turn left on South St, then Right on Main street."

 

It's women who have to give the 50 landmarks. I only want the street names. If I have the street name, why in the world would I need anything else? Most of the streets do have signs on them.

Edited September 21, 2009 by Garga

[Happy]

Our town's newsletter (it's not big enough to be a paper--comes out 4 xs a year) reads that you can drop off your lawn cuttings in the field by the old Hardy place. No address.

 

Women give weird directions. Men just say, "Turn left on South St, then Right on Main street."

 

It's women who have to give the 50 landmarks. I only want the street names. If I have the street name, why in the world would I need anything else? Most of the streets do have signs on them.

 

Actually, I do both. Sometimes the Walgreen's on the corner is easier to see than the street sign...especially if you are driving in lots of traffic.

 

I also prefer folks to say north, south, etc. instead of right and left.

 

I had a client once who gave directions backwards...if she meant right, she said left. Once I figured out her style I could find the location.

[mazakaal]

Goodness, that sounds like around here! I need a GPS desperately.

 

GPS doesn't always help. We were on a road trip to NC with a borrowed GPS. A friend had given directions to their house but the GPS told us a different way. We followed the GPS, turning left when we should have turned right. We searched up and down that road for the house, finally gave up, and went back to where the GPS diverged from the friend's directions. We found it fine going by the directions we had been given.

 

Once a friend was visiting us with their GPS. It took them on the shortest (by mileage) route through all the windy, narrow country roads and turned what should have been a 30 minute drive into an hour drive. There's an expression here, "Do you want the short way or the quick way?"

[Annie]

My GPS is pretty close to being my best friend.

 

During college I took auto claims at a national claim center. One of my favorite callers, when I asked his address, responded that he lived, "In the old Thompson holler." :glare: When I asked for some clarification, he said that it was, "You know - just a few acres behind the little red church that nobody uses anymore."

 

After a few minutes of going back and forth, I had to have him put the phone done and go find me a piece of mail that came to him.

 

Oh, and he was calling because his cousin (maybe it was his uncle?) stole his Jeep and drove it into a tree about two miles down the road... When I asked him if he had filed a police report, he told me that he didn't even bother calling because the same cousin had shot through his window and stolen some tools from his shed the week before and the sheriff had sided with the cousin.

 

:sigh: Those were the good old days...

[adams101]

It's over by the old Target building.(The one that wasn't there when we moved here, that they have now made into Dr. offices. :glare:). DH bought me a gps when we moved, I love it!

[Christy B]

When we owned an appliance store . . .

 

Sure, you can bring the refrigerator to my house on Thursday.

 

Do you know where old Coffee's Market used to be before it burned down?

Okay, so you know how if you turn there, it takes you across Old White Bridge Road and you can turn left onto 275 and head toward town? Well, there's a gravel drive about three quarters of a mile on your right, and that will bring you through the back forty where I have the corn planted, right up to my back door.

 

(All of this has been duly recorded on the customer's delivery instructions sheet.)

 

But that's not the way you want to go. :svengo:

[LibraryLover]

Bwahahahahahahahahaha!:lol:

 

I was going to suggest a GPS, but that would mean the end of these stories.

[JFSinIL]

 

Women give weird directions. Men just say, "Turn left on South St, then Right on Main street."

 

Except my hubby, who insists on saying "Go north here,...now go east..." drives me BATTY! By the time I have figured out which way is north*, I have missed my turn or gone the wrong way. SAY LEFT and RIGHT!!!!

 

Drives my ds batty, too, so much so that he refuses to get in the car with hubby to practice driving (still has his learners permit ... it runs out in three months!)

 

* I have felt disoriented since I moved here from S. California - there the big body of water is on the WEST and the sun sets over it. In Chicagoland it is all reversed.

[Tap]

 

* I have felt disoriented since I moved here from S. California - there the big body of water is on the WEST and the sun sets over it. In Chicagoland it is all reversed.

 

For the majority of my life I lived South of a town, no I live North of a different town, both towns had a major freeway on the West side of town. Eight years later and it still messes me up to give directions to the freeway as left/right. It is funny how ingrained directions become in our brains.

[gardening momma]

just for a moment try to imagine that I did not grow up in this city and so don't know every landmark and random street. That is all.:glare:

And places that "used to be there" used as landmarks. Dh does this to me all the time. "You know where the Kroger used to be? Before it the Big Lots moved in?" Me: "What Big Lots?" Dh: "Oh, it's not there anymore either."

 

:D

[lionfamily1999]

just for a moment try to imagine that I did not grow up in this city and so don't know every landmark and random street. That is all.:glare:

From the other side...

 

Yes, I've lived here most of my life. That does not mean I actually know the street names. I know WHO lives on WHAT street (the street two down from the Johnson's), just not the names. Oh, and half the businesses have new names, but I don't know the new names (they're like when Prince went with the symbol - the store formerly known as Little Sue's).

 

:lol:

[Jean in Newcastle]

I had one person ask me - do you want "women's" directions (landmarks) or "men's directions" (street names)? I said, why don't you give me the men's ones and then add in the women's ones where it really helps?

[Ellie]

Best gift my dh ever gave me was adding the gps part to my phone. Excellent... wonderful... lovely... best friend!! You can get a refurbished one for around $100. I save that from just saving gas:-)

Carrie:-)

Unless you live in Texas, at least, in the Austin area. The streets/freeways have multiple names, used to be surface roads which crossed/combined with other roads, have frontage roads which also have names not the same as the freeway/expressway they parrellel (sp??). My GPS wants me to turn *left* on a certain street off the freeway. Um...:glare: I wish I could find the folks who take of the database or whatever the GPS derives its instructions from and give them a piece of my mind.:glare: Oh, and let's not forget that my own street's name is incorrect (it's also incorrect in MapQuest and a couple of other mapping sites). Ugh.

[Ibbygirl]

My GPS is pretty close to being my best friend.

 

During college I took auto claims at a national claim center. One of my favorite callers, when I asked his address, responded that he lived, "In the old Thompson holler." :glare: When I asked for some clarification, he said that it was, "You know - just a few acres behind the little red church that nobody uses anymore."

 

After a few minutes of going back and forth, I had to have him put the phone done and go find me a piece of mail that came to him.

 

Oh, and he was calling because his cousin (maybe it was his uncle?) stole his Jeep and drove it into a tree about two miles down the road... When I asked him if he had filed a police report, he told me that he didn't even bother calling because the same cousin had shot through his window and stolen some tools from his shed the week before and the sheriff had sided with the cousin.

 

:sigh: Those were the good old days...

 

ROFL :lol::lol::lol: I cannot imagine what the cousin said to the sheriff to make him side with him. What a great story! hehehe

[Truscifi]

I'm reading these stories and wondering what the problem is. They sound like perfectly good directions to me. Full disclosure: I have lived in the deep south all my life, though in different parts of it, and I am always so proud in a new place when I learn where all that stuff 'usta (pronounced use-ta) be'! :tongue_smilie:

[Crissy]

I recently caught myself giving directions that included the phrase, "turn left at the old llama barn."

 

:001_huh:

 

I apologize.

[Moni]

Don't make me come over there and hurt you!:lol:

 

:lol:

 

My favorite is when I ask for directions....

 

Do you know where the Texaco is?

No

 

Do you know where the deli is?

No.

 

The deli by the dry cleaners?

No

 

Do you know where the Bank of America is?

No.......maybe you should just ... give me directions?... ?.. ?.. ? ;)

 

Oh, okay, Take Main Street and turn left on First Street.....

 

 

:seeya:

[jfletcher8091]

I'm reading these stories and wondering what the problem is. They sound like perfectly good directions to me. Full disclosure: I have lived in the deep south all my life, though in different parts of it, and I am always so proud in a new place when I learn where all that stuff 'usta (pronounced use-ta) be'! :tongue_smilie:

 

I didn't see anyone mention the old truck up on blocks, though, that is almost ALWAYS a landmark in the south!

[OnTheBrink]

Except my hubby, who insists on saying "Go north here,...now go east..." drives me BATTY! By the time I have figured out which way is north*, I have missed my turn or gone the wrong way. SAY LEFT and RIGHT!!!!

 

Drives my ds batty, too, so much so that he refuses to get in the car with hubby to practice driving (still has his learners permit ... it runs out in three months!)

 

* I have felt disoriented since I moved here from S. California - there the big body of water is on the WEST and the sun sets over it. In Chicagoland it is all reversed.

 

Can I ever relate! Except I don't have the luxury of having Lake Michigan on the wrong side. Our lake is to the southishwestishmaybeeastish part of town. I have to check where the sun is most of the time now.

 

And, when we lived in rural MO, we got the "Go to old man Sullivan's place, turn at the end of the property onto the dirt road, watch out for the cattle, go a piece until you see Mary Mayfield's place--it's blue, or maybe white. Hey, Buford, did Jorgen's boy paint Mayfield's place? Anyway, it's a woman's house, so when you see that, you're almost there." :willy_nilly:

[Tutor]

GPS doesn't always help.

 

When we give people directions to our house, we have to say, "I'll give you directions. Do not use your GPS." Our road has 3 names because of how different routes merge and separate; the GPS mappers (including Mapquest and GoogleMaps) randomly chose which name to use when using their software, so if someone puts our address into a GPS, it puts them in town 6 miles from where we live.

 

When I ask for directions, I am usually very blunt with people, "I am new and have no clue where I am going. I know where the Walmart is. Please give me directions from there. Use street names and landmarks if you can. I really appreciate the help. Thanks."

[Moni]

I'll give you directions. Do not use your GPS."

 

I prefer folks to just give me their address.

 

Then they still say, "You know where that dry cleaners is on the corner with the deli...?....?

 

:lol:

 

:seeya:

[SheilaZ]

I once gave my husband directions that included the phrase, "Turn right at the dead cat in the road."

 

He tried to argue that a dead cat was not a man-made nor permanent landmark.

I countered that the cat didn't end up dead in the road by accident and that the county was not known for taking care of road kill so it was fairly permanent.

[unsinkable]

My GPS is pretty close to being my best friend.

 

During college I took auto claims at a national claim center. One of my favorite callers, when I asked his address, responded that he lived, "In the old Thompson holler." :glare: When I asked for some clarification, he said that it was, "You know - just a few acres behind the little red church that nobody uses anymore."

 

After a few minutes of going back and forth, I had to have him put the phone done and go find me a piece of mail that came to him.

 

Oh, and he was calling because his cousin (maybe it was his uncle?) stole his Jeep and drove it into a tree about two miles down the road... When I asked him if he had filed a police report, he told me that he didn't even bother calling because the same cousin had shot through his window and stolen some tools from his shed the week before and the sheriff had sided with the cousin.

 

:sigh: Those were the good old days...

 

This is one of my top ten WTM stories ever! :lol:

[Rebel]

Oops, sorry...that would be me. I routinely tell people that my doctor's office is in the strip mall in the parking lot of the old Target. At least, it still looked like a Target before the recent doctor office renovation.

[Annie]

This is one of my top ten WTM stories ever! :lol:

 

Glad I could amuse! ;) Seriously though, that job was the absolute best for stories. I worked 3rd shift a lot, so I was the one who got the real characters. If you get a call at 4:00am on Christmas, you know it's going to be good.

[eaglei]

You guys are so funny! THANKS for the laughs - and thanks to OP for starting this thread! I needed a laugh today - and ya'll gave me many! I'll check back later for more laughs!

:smilielol5:

[linders]

Y'all need to find the County Records office? It's in the old hospital building.

 

Oh, it hasn't been used for a hospital in 8 years.

 

This has only happened to me since we moved to the South a few months ago.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I don't know if you have Thomas Guides where you are. They are detailed maps of the areas around here. All the delivery guys use them. Well, our street was not drawn correctly on the last few years' Thomas Guides.

 

So, I'll get a delivery confirmation call. I will tell them that I need to give them directions since the Thomas Guide is wrong. I will get a rather condescending "Ma'am, our delivery people are professionals and do not need directions" speech.

 

It never fails. 10 to 20 minutes after they are supposed to arrive, I will get a very sheepish call. "Ma'am? The Thomas Guide seems to be wrong. Could you give us directions?"

[Ravin]

I still get lost in the town where I grew up...and not just because things have changed since I lived there.

 

Last week I wanted to go to Play it Again Sports. It's a secondhand sporting goods store. Well, DH says, "It's on the NE corner of McClintock and Elliot, by the B of A, Subway, and Burger King."

 

Now, I DO know some of the area, and that's not what's on that corner. So he goes, "Well, then, it's McClintock and Warner. Just go down McClintock until you see the bank."

 

Great. I did. And I didn't see any of the 3 landmarks, EVEN THOUGH IT TURNED OUT TO BE THE RIGHT CORNER. I can't do landmarks. I wound up driving another couple of miles, then pulling in to a grocery store and looking in the yellow pages for the address. Armed with the street number, I drove back down Warner...and by the numbers I found it, then realized yes, there is B of A, Burger King, etc.

 

DD was not pleased, lol.

 

DH is as bad as anyone in a small town, except he has a large span of metro Phoenix stored in his brain. If it's in Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, Phoenix, or Scottsdale, he probably knows where it is. Even if it's been shut down for years. (i.e., it's over by where X theater used to be. You know, next to the Bennigan's that closed a decade ago...)

 

I did get him to stop giving me mountains as landmarks. They don't have mountains where I come from, they don't compute in my brain's navigation software.

 

I definitely miss having GPS and googlemaps on my phone...

[brehon]

No, no. Ya gotta go down the road a piece to the house with the pig in the yard and then turn left and go on to ya see the fork in the road, go to the right and turn at the first bridge. If ya come to a house with a buffalo in the yard then ya done gone too far and you have to turn around and go back because that road run into the lake but you know don't worry about it because . . . you can't miss it. :001_huh:

 

Wait...don't tell me...you used to dispatch me, didnja? Except for the buffalo part [it was a bull which apparently never moved from this one particular fence post], I swear these were the directions I had to follow to get to someone's house.

 

Oh, and the bridge had washed out back when Carter was president and the county never bothered to replace it.

 

Unless you live in Texas, at least, in the Austin area. The streets/freeways have multiple names, used to be surface roads which crossed/combined with other roads, have frontage roads which also have names not the same as the freeway/expressway they parrellel (sp??). My GPS wants me to turn *left* on a certain street off the freeway. Um...:glare: I wish I could find the folks who take of the database or whatever the GPS derives its instructions from and give them a piece of my mind.:glare: Oh, and let's not forget that my own street's name is incorrect (it's also incorrect in MapQuest and a couple of other mapping sites). Ugh.

 

You were travelling on 183...no, Ed Bluestein...no, Research...no, Bell Blvd weren't you. I hate that RR has changed the names of 1431 and 1460. Confuses the begeezus outta me everytime. Mapsco is often wrong, too.

[Ellie]

You guys are so funny! THANKS for the laughs - and thanks to OP for starting this thread! I needed a laugh today - and ya'll gave me many! I'll check back later for more laughs!

:smilielol5:

YW. :-)

 

This came up--again--because of an event I went to Friday evening, when I couldn't get a straight answer from the very nice woman who was trying to tell me how to get to her church. I had a nice tour of the surrounding area while I called Mr. Ellie (multiple times, because he didn't take his cell phone with him when he went to the grocery store:glare:). When I got there, I told the woman that the location was Canada to me, lol.

 

I get this all the time from my hula group; we'll be doing a show somewhere south of me, where they've lived for close to 20 years, or west of me, and they'll say, "You know where the 7-11 is on Ben White?" And I'll say, "Hello! California native!":lol: They're getting better at giving me street addresses so I can look it up on GoogleMaps or whatever; I guess they figured out that's better than having me show up breathing fire like Drew Barrymore in Firestarter because I couldn't.find.the.place. (and it's a good thing they can't hear me saying "BACK OFF!" in my head :D).

[Sebastian (a lady)]

A bunch of the major roads are loops. It just makes more sense to say mauka (inland or towards the mountains), makai (seaward or toward the ocean), Ewa (toward the Ewa plain - generally west) and Diamond Head or Koko Head (generally East).

 

But the first time I saw an anouncement in the paper for a volunteer group to meet at the mauka ewa corner of Walmart I had to scratch my head. And of course, there were plenty of ads that gave directions as near the old Costco (that hadn't been a Costco for several years).

 

Our base now is very loopy. I wish that I could explain things as being inland or towards the water, but I'm not sure others would understand.