I suck at directions

Tonight my son and three of his friends attended a party. Recently, they've become friends with girls they met at a dance who do not go to their public school, girls who go to a private school. A very nice private school. These girls seem to have one thing in common: intense parents. Wait, two things in common: intense parents and houses in far-flung neighborhoods.

Tonight was no exception.

The party was taking place a mere 18 minutes away if I followed the Mapquest directions. No problem. I confirmed the pick up time, sat down to watch a movie with Michael and soon fell asleep.

Michael woke me at the time I had said I'd pick up the boys, so I bolted out the door a little sleepy but still confident I'd get there with plenty of time. In Seattle, it's not uncommon to find neighborhoods with streets that become stairs that travel up a hill or dead end, only to reconstitute into a street once again a block later. I realized I'd have to call for directions. So I call my kid, who ended up giving the phone to a parent. I say thanks to this mom, thinking my minutes of being lost are thankfully over now, but I'm wrong. 

The woman on the other end of the phone opens with an unusual phrase, 

"You're lost? I'm trying to survive this night!" 

"Oh? I'm sorry ..." I say, hearing what the woman just said, but also worrying that my son was partly responsible for her quest for survival.

"Nevermind, not really, I just want this party to end. The kids have destroyed my house." She laughs.                   

The woman's tempo is anxious and harried. I start forming an image in my mind of a platinum blonde chain smoker holding a martini in one hand while gesturing wildly with her other hand standing inside a bombed out shell of a home. So I say the two things that come to mind in an effort to move the conversation to directions.

"I'm sorry about that, I'm trying to get to your house to pick up my son." 

She tells me to start my journey back in Madison Park and take a left at a street with a landmark (gas station). When I ask what the name of the street is, the mom says, "I don't know, just take a left at that light and drive away from the water." 

OK, I say. Driving away from water is sound advice. And I do. Then I hear her begin to question a kid about taking food from her freezer, a lot of food. She starts yelling at the kid. Apparently, from what I can hear of the conversation, which seems to be directed into the mouthpiece of her phone and into my ear, this kid has helped himself to a substantial number of Otter Pops. 

A box of the frozen treats. 

I interject, "I hope that's not one of my boys." 

Oh no, she said, she was sure it wasn't. She was sure that I wouldn't raise a child that was so rude. She launches into a new line of questioning, this time toward me.

"Where are you now? Have you taken that soft right I told you about?" 

"What's the name of that street?" I ask. 

I don't know, she says a little louder, faster and frantically than I would consider "normal." She's clearly becoming exasperated with me. And then she starts yelling at a whole group of kids, who had apparently taken chips from her house, a lot of chips. Whole bags of chips. 

"Who are you talking to?" I ask.

I hear her screaming at a kid, "What's your name, I asked what's your name?! Billy? Billy is his name but it's the whole pack of them."

"He's one of the kids I'm picking up."

This opens up a line of assaults that Billy had committed included taking her Otter Pops. 

I was feeling defensive for Billy, and I was becoming worried about my own son. This crazy woman was the only connection I had to the boys and it was imperative she remain compliant enough to ensure I got to her burnt out house of hell. Not looking good though, because I was also lost, again, and asked for the next step to get closer to her house to rescue my son and his friends. 

"Where are you now? Are you following my instructions!" Her question sounded more like an accusation. 

"Yes, I took the gentle right but I'm looking for the next turn." 

"You should be driving up a hill!" 

"I'm actually driving down hill. What's the name of the street?" I ask. 

"I don't know! I don't know any of the names of the streets around here. Wait! The boys say you just drove by. You have to turn around!" 

Whew. I feel a wave of relief. 

Perhaps I'm not lost after all and the end of this weird exchange with the harried mom is coming to a close. Even though I can't see a soul on the streets, I turn around. I start driving back in the dark.

"Wait, are you driving a SUV?" 

"No, I'm driving a Volvo."

"Oh, never mind, they were wrong." 

Well, how could my kid be wrong? He knows what kind of car I drive. I can hear her whisper something like, "Whose mother is this? She really sucks at instructions." 

Oddly enough, I'm thinking the same thing.

I finally pull over and put the car in park and interrupt the woman.

"I need to know if I've taken the wrong road."

"Oh, did you turn around? I'm sorry the boys thought you had driven past! They were wrong! Oh wait," she says, "another dad is here. He's driving a white Cadillac (what does that mean?) and he's offered to meet you at the crosswalk at the school and bring you back here."

"That would be great."

She starts screaming at the kids again, "Who raised you?" and "Why do you think you can take other people's things?" The verbal assaults continue, I'm beginning to feel quite anxious by this time and I want to rescue the boys.

She hangs up the phone and I wait for my knight in the white Cadillac to appear. He does and he gives me directions with street names and other helpful specifics. I thank him and take off up the street making the right turns at the right intersections, rolling up to my boys and a harried woman who is smoking and walking briskly to my side of the car.

"Get outta here!" She yells at me. 

It must be a joke because she continues to babble about how she doesn't know the names of the streets but I should just do the opposite of what I did to get home. 

Thanks for the advice I say and I tell the boys to get in quickly. 

We roll up the windows as she walks back into her house. As I drive off I turn down the stereo volume that always seems to increase exponentially whenever my son gets into the car, opening a flood gate of comments from all the occupants in the back seat. 

"They told us we could help ourselves to any of the leftover party food."

"I only took enough pop for all of us."

"That dad was screaming at us, he said we were all (expletives)."

"Otter Pops are like $2 for a box of 80."

I let them go on for a second and then I stop the car, turn around and say, 

"You boys are not allowed to go to any more parties at that house with that family. She freaked me out and there was something very, very wrong with her. "

"She said you sucked at directions, mom."

I know honey, I know.