The Order of the Hand Will Rule!

A section of my street is closed due to construction. And using your GPS to get to my house will put you face to face with a big "Road Closed" sign. Your GPS and all of its high tech technology will literally get you nowhere.

So my guests have had to resort to--gasp--actual maps. And it's not going well. Have we gotten so moronic that we can't get anywhere unless some disembodied Stepford Wife on the GPS says in a semi-coo, "turn right onto Main Street".

The whole thing reminds me of a sketch on Saturday Night Live. Will Ferrell and Nancy Walls are Oliver and Diane, the co-hosts (w/ David Alan Grier as Weatherman Tim) of "Wake Up and Smile!", one of those regional Good Morning America knock-offs.

The wheels on this vehicle come off as soon as their teleprompter breaks and they are literally at a loss for words. After a few fumbled exchanges:

Oliver: "The teleprompter on which everything we say appears on...is broken!"
Diane: "Please! Let's get that teleprompter fixed!"

the three of them turn from panic to a variation of Lord of the Flies:

Oliver: "We will live! WE WILL LIVE!!!!!" [cuts to commercial, then back from commercial, the set is on fire, Oliver's shirtless and a hand symbol is painted on his chest]
"The order of the hand will rule us!"
Tim: "But what if the box still refuses to give us words?"
Oliver: "You challenge my authority?!"
Tim: "I smell from your scent that you are weak. I challenge you!"

[a scuffle ensues, Oliver emerges with Tim's severed head]

Oliver: "The weatherman is DEAD! I KILLED the weatherman! His strength is in me!"

Then of course the teleprompter is fixed and there's nothing more awkward than holding your dead co-worker's head by the hair! Oopsie!

While as far as I know, none of my guests have resorted to cannibalism, they've made it a whole lot more difficult than it needs to be.

On Sunday, after giving a guest directions by email, her Pittsburgh contact directions by email, no one could either follow them or bother to get them out and read them. The guest's driver called in a panic, "I'm on 44th Street and it's closed! How do I get to your house?" I gave her directions to complete the 2 minute drive to my house.

Thirty minutes later they still didn't show up. I called them, and the guest, sounding very annoyed, said "We are on your street and there is a big "road closed" sign and don't know where to go." This time, I navigated the aforementioned very put out guest to my house.

Her driver, of course, did not know how to get to the theater for the event they were going to. I drew them a map (literally two turns to get there) and sent them on their way. Fifteen minutes later the guest is back, handing her keys to me.

"Your location is too far away and there are just too many detours," she said. "I'm going to stay with a friend."

Um, okay.

Yesterday I had another guest coming in for the same event and it was Groundhog Day all over again. This time, his GPS directions weren't helping him! This guy, who from what I understand is a world traveler and lives in New York City, is too freaked out to drive his rental car to the same theater (you know, the one that it takes two turns to get to from my house?) so he's got this poor girl carting him around.

Last night, he tells me, they returned around 2:00 in the morning and he couldn't get his key to work! He's in a panic -- what can he do? Should he call me to help him figure out how to work the deadbolt?

Turns out Einstein wasn't even at my house -- he was at one down the street (I suspect some cocktails were involved, no?). He's lucky we don't live in NRA territory, or I suspect trying to use a key to enter a house that doesn't belong to you may be cause for justifiable homicide.

This Sunday the worst direction follower on the planet is coming to my house: my dad. Now, despite the fact that my parents have been coming to this house for well over 15 years and the detour involves going up a street they've traveled for 15 years, how much do you want to bet that they will somehow end up downtown?

My Dad: "44th Street is closed - there's a big "Do not enter" sign there! So we kept going straight and then I saw the Convention Center and knew we'd gone too far!"

Pray for me, people, pray for me!