I am geometrically challenged. I know this; I accept it. I cannot find my own way out of a paper
bag. If I were in a round room, I would get
stuck in a corner. My sense of direction
is the worst on the planet, I cannot retrace my own steps, and I cannot
follow the simplest of directions without creating the wrong driving shape on
the map.
For instance, I have to go to a local university for a
lacrosse game.
This should be an easy shot.
It's one turn off the highway.
Honestly, I shouldn't have any trouble following Trapelo Road, which is
an exit off route 128, and taking one simple turn onto Forest Street. After all, I see the fields on the map. It's a no-brainer.
Until I arrive at the fields and discover that, despite the
address and the proximity to the college, these fields are not connected to the
school. Pissah.
So I head further down the road and pull into the actual
college. I see a campus map and stop to
read it. Problem is, there are no sports
fields listed on that thing, either. I
start driving through the campus that is, apparently, built on a mountain. I wind around buildings, going down and down
and down. I feel like one of Maria's
goats from her lonely herd, and I suddenly want to sing songs from The Sound of Music.
After circling (or it could've be triangulating or maybe
even quadralateralling) the entire campus, I ask two nice young women where
their sports fields are.
"Are you here for the lacrosse game?"
I smile, suddenly hopeful, and respond, "Yes, I
am."
"Well, you see where that cop car is? Turn right there, go down the steep hill,
then pull straight across the road and park.
After that, you can … oh, you could also turn at the light, go down the
street, turn again, then turn again, then turn again, and attempt to maybe find
the back parking lot to the athletic center…"
Nice girl, but I lost her somewhere around New Jersey.
I make it down the steep incline, wondering how in the hell
anyone can survive driving or even walking this campus when it snows. One could start at the top of the campus and
slide into the road three streets away simply from the pitch of the cliff on
which the campus sits. I discover that
the lacrosse field is behind several other fields, and that there is no place
to park that is even remotely near the place.
After ending up at several dead-ends, I find a parking space near some
distant tennis courts, which is about as close to the field as Istanbul.
After trekking across the Great Divide, I arrive at the
field. Only "field" is not
quite the correct term. I am appalled to
discover that this extremely expensive, DII school has the world's oldest
astro-turf surface. As a matter of fact,
it's a rug with some kind of springy foam under it. The boys cannot even wear cleats. Lacrosse balls are bouncing everywhere and
the game resembles ping pong more than anything else. The only "field" I've seen that was
worse was in Worcester, and the surface was a semi-tar/plastic combination that
was better suited to tennis and chariot racing than turf sports. I ponder the incredible juxtaposition of this
gorgeously built school, with its fancy buildings and its elaborate road system
and its high tuition, and this absolutely perplexing excuse for a sports field.
The only thing more perplexing is where the team's bus
parked. Apparently it's down and around
behind the field house building. Problem
is, locked gates are everywhere, and it's a mystery as to how to get to the
parking lot where I am supposed to meet the bus to deliver goodies for after
the game. As soon as the game ends,
without even saying hello to my kid, another parent offers to drive with me to
the parking lot. Somehow she has managed
to find it.
We trek back to my car, which requires several rest stops
and a Sherpa. Once located, we climb in
and begin the trip that should be two lefts.
Simple. Even I cannot screw up
two lefts.
Once we start driving, though, it becomes evident that this
is not going to be an easy task. We turn
left, which means we are driving away from the field. This sort of makes sense … until we go two
streets away to the next light. This
seems too far away. Then there's another
left. Then a right, then a left and a
right, then a right around a building and then, finally, another left into a
back lot. There are multiple dead-ends
on our way to the back lot, and I realize as I park the car that I am craving
cheese … not because I am particularly hungry but because I suddenly feel like
a mouse in a maze.
Listen up. If you're
going to charge the actual shirts off people's backs to send their teenagers to
your school, you may want to make it, oh, I don't know, more maneuverable, more
user-friendly, and maybe put down some decent astro-turf that wasn't installed
when these students' grandparents were attending classes there.
That's just my random thought process. I mean, first of all, if a school has a map
for drivers to stop and look at, it should probably include the sports
complex. Secondly, if there is parking
(or something resembling it), it should be easier to find than going in a
convoluted octagonal serpentine design when the field is directly behind where
you start. Lastly, if your school is
going to be built on the side of the Matterhorn, make sure all your students
can sing "High on a hill was the lonely goat herd."
You know, just in case.
