Embaressment

Everyone has moments of embaressment- it just so happens that I feel that way much more often than others. I am very clutzy and awkard on, pretty much, a daily basis. My brother is back in college and he had to write a narrative essay on embaressment and, of course, he chose a story about me. Now the story is a little exagerated but, what good story isn't?

The bro

In the year 2011, people don’t really have an excuse to not find a location or not find a route to their destination. There have been numerous sites on the internet dedicated to directions such as MapQuest or Google Maps. GPS systems for personal use have been sold for years by all electronics stores. Most recently, all smart phones have built in GPS applications to help you locate your destination. It is obvious that these products are more than useful in our travels and can definitely help the user pick the quickest or easiest route to drive. But I have come to the realization that these products are really made for and marketed towards people with absolutely no sense of direction, such as my sister, Meredith.

            My family moved to Charlotte, NC in 1995 from Meridian, MS when my dad accepted a job here in town. My parents bought a house in south Charlotte, off Carmel Rd; therefore I attended Carmel Middle School. My sister, Meredith, is three years younger than I and when the time came she also attended Carmel Middle School. Each school day our routine was for one of our parents to take us to school in the family minivan. I was dropped off first and then Meredith was taken to her elementary school. For two years we had the same routine, our parents driving the three minute trip straight up Carmel Rd. passing other neighborhoods, one Texaco gas station, Carmel Country Club, and then before you had time to blink I was getting out walking into class. A couple years later I was in 9^th grade attending South Mecklenburg High School and Meredith moved up to Carmel Middle School for 6^th grade. Although I was now going the opposite direction in the mornings to school, Meredith was still taking a straight shot up Carmel Rd. to the middle school. You would have thought after riding up and down Carmel Rd., twice a day, five days a week, for four years of her life that Meredith would have some type of bearings on where she was in our small area of south Charlotte. Not so much.

            Growing up in our neighborhood there was one main place to go for a young teenager with only their feet or a bike for independent transportation; the neighborhood park. My friends and I played on the tennis, basketball, and volleyball courts but our favorite thing to do was go exploring in the woods in the back of the park. There was one large creek that seemed like it went on forever throughout the wooded area and as long as we stuck close to it, we could easily find our way back. Even when we found ourselves in the huge field of bamboo, which was often, we always knew our whereabouts by finding the creek. My sister never joined us and never had any desire to “get dirty” out in the woods with her brother and his friends. From my perspective, that was just fine because we didn’t want a little girl to slow us down anyways. After a few years her curiosity started to get the better of her. Eventually she started to move in on my territory and started to wonder down the creek but never too far from the tree line. Until one day….

            Meredith was a 7^th grader now at Carmel Middle School and her new best friend was named Deanne. One of the first few times Deanne came over to hang out with Meredith, they decided to go to the park by themselves and explore the woods. Deanne being a bit more adventurous decided, for the two of them, that today they were going to explore every inch of the woods! It was Deanne’s first time in the woods behind our neighborhood park but Meredith had no problem letting her be the guide for their tour. They began taking a casual stroll following the creek as it twisted and turned through the woods. They continued on when the creek became deeper and the trees cornered you in on both sides. Your choice was to turn back or climb down roots in the ground on the side of the creek bed and walk in the shallow water or jump from rock to rock. They pressed on. After tackling that obstacle they were able to climb out of the creek and back into a thick field of bamboo which surrounded them in every direction. By now it had been an hour or two and they had seen what they came to see. It was time to go home. It took a few minutes but they found their waypoint and started to follow the creek back home. Little did they know they followed the creek the wrong way!

            By this point my mother was getting worried about Meredith. She hopped in the car, left me at home to answer the phone if she called, and took a couple laps around the neighborhood hoping to find the girls. They were nowhere to be found and on my mother’s return panic ensued. She called my dad home early. When he got there she told him that someone had “kidnapped her baby.” Some strange man had driven by and just snatched Meredith and Deanne right up. Their last attempt before calling 911 were to each take a car out and search one more time. Once again I was left to man the phone or in my mind sit and watch TV. The phone finally rang.

            When I picked up all I could hear was hysterical crying. I knew it was my sister and was genuinely concerned, at first, so I asked what was going on. “We’re lost and I have no idea where we are!” I told her to calm down and tell me what was around. “We are at a gas station. The sign is red and black. I think it says Texaco.” I burst into laughter, all concern gone, and tell her “Meredith, you’re two blocks from our house and you’re lost!” Laughter continued on my end over her tears. My parents walked in and I handed the phone to my Mom. After a little consoling we all went to pick her. We pulled up and she was still crying while my Mom and Dad hugged her to let her know all was well.

When the girls got out of the woods they came out on Carmel Rd. and went the wrong way. They went past the gas station and all the way to the country club before turning around and walking back to the gas station to use the pay phone. To make things worse for my sister, her friend Deanne, made fun of her and called her a wimp and baby the entire time they walked up and down Carmel Rd while she sobbed. To this day, none of my family members can understand how Meredith got lost two blocks from home. All I can say is that my sister has owned a GPS system since her college days and I’m still not sure if she can get further than two blocks without using it.