Lost in the Funhouse

Whenever the US Department of Paranoiac Frenzy (USDPF) gets a whiff of a terrorist plot or conspiracy or threat or whatever, the Powers That Be (PTB) instantly spring into action – they warn all US citizens in the area to ALTER THEIR ROUTES.

The strategy seems sound. When 295 million Americans suddenly turn and start heading in the other direction, your average terrorist will certainly become confused and depressed, seeking counseling and probably eating more chocolate than he should.

The simple idea is to be less predictable in your movements. I know a few people who tell me that they do this as a reflex. In no way would like to defenestrate this rationale. I believe that the PTB are just looking out for my best interest – so that when I DO get attacked and it turns out that I did NOT alter my route, the PTB are clean as a whistle. I, on the other hand, have a very particular issue with this idea. As I say, I do not object, but I simply cannot comply.

I have no sense of direction.

I belong to a certain subset of the human race that chooses not distinguish automatically between right and left. These are, after all, relative values. I can walk up and down a street no fewer than 300 times and still not remember if the bakery is before the pharmacy or after the café. In the supermarket, I am continually “discovering” where the juices are shelved. I tend to find one way to get from point A to point B and use it EVERY SINGLE TIME. What Regular Guys don’t get (and by Regular Guys, I am talking about the rest of you who have at least a modicum of geographical orientation) is that I use the same route out of sheer force of habit. Not because I actually know the way.

Think about this: try to explain to your child (or borrow a child from your neighbor if you don’t have one) how to tie a shoelace. Immediately, the vast majority of seemingly rational adults will look at their shoes and start manipulating their fingers in mid-air – trying to isolate the process in order to explain it. This is the process I go through when I have to THINK about where I need to travel.

So what do you do when you are asked to alter your route by the USDPF but you don’t know what your route is in the first place? Ah, I will say to myself, today I will go this way! And the next day I will take this new direction. Happy with myself for having successfully altered my route, I remain oblivious to the fact that while I THINK I have changed something, I have actually become a paragon of utter predictability – walking or driving along the exact same itinerary, sun up and sun down.

Otherwise, I may just experience what is clinically known as Involuntary Progressive Dysfunctional Perambulation and Destination Dislocation. This is commonly known as “getting lost.”

But, in theory, if you cannot say with any certainty where anything is and/or how to get there, then, by the same theory, one can never be lost.

And there is, therefore, no need to alter your route.