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Never Send a BYU Grad to do a U Grad's Job

My visiting teaching was scheduled for yesterday, and I had invited everyone over to my place for dinner. My companion does not drive, so I offered to pick her up from work. She works at the U. Now, being a BYU grad, I am completely unfamiliar with the U. I can manage to make my way to Kingsbury Hall and the stadium, but that's about it. She sent me some maps, but none of them had any street names on them. But I figured all I needed was a little help from my friends at Google. So yesterday, before I left work, I looked up the building address and printed the driving directions. I'm usually pretty good at navigating, so feeling fairly confident, I made my way up to the U.

So much for feeling fairly confident. The directions told me to take Foothill to Wasatch Drive. But apparently Wasatch Drive has been renamed or something, because I couldn't find it. I ended up going down to 17th East, then making my way past 18th East. The directions told me to turn on 19th East. Well, I couldn't find 19th East. So I go into Fort Douglas, which then turns into U of U student housing. Thinking that couldn't be right, I get back onto a main drag and start heading towards the Hospitals, knowing from the map that the building is fairly close to there.

As I'm heading towards the Hospitals, my companion calls, wondering where I am. Now is also probably where I should mention that she is Japanese, and with the accent, I just couldn't tell where she was trying to tell me. So then her co-worker gets on the phone. Nice guy, but I was on the phone with him for 30 minutes or so, while he drove me all over the U, up and down and all around - everywhere except the building I was trying to find. So imagine me driving all over the U of U campus, one-handed, while trying to listen to directions on the phone, trying not to hit bikers or pedestrians, or turn into parking lots that really weren't parking lots. Finally I say I'm at a particular parking lot, and he, exasperated, says to stay there, and she can find me. So I drive in circles around the (very small) parking lot for 10 minutes until she finally found me.

At this point, it is nearly 6:00, which is when people are supposed to be at my house. Hurriedly I called the girls to tell them what was going on. I shouldn't have worried about it, though. One had completely forgotten about it, and the other was running very late anyway. So we made our way back to my house. I had kept my cool pretty good up until that point, but by now I was completely on edge. Thankfully I had already cooked the night before, so all I needed to do was heat things up and lay out the paper products. After that, everything went off pretty good, except that I had over-prepared (big surprise), and have a ton of left overs. By the time they left at 8:00, I was totally spent. And may I never have to go up to the U ever, ever again.

The moral of the story? Never send a BYU grad to do a U grad's job.

Comments

Yikes, that story makes my head hurt. I hate that area and always get super lost, as well. Why can't it just be straightforward and direct?
Tracie said…
I know! I don't know how anyone gets around up there. Hello - in Utah we believe in a grid system! :)
Anonymous said…
It's perfectly simple once you get the hang of it :-) You should have called me - remember I work there and have been lost many, many times! They changed Wasatch to Mario Capecchi Drive in honor of Mario Capecchi, Nobel Prize Winner.
jamie said…
I agree, I hate driving up there, BUT, my real point of leaving this comment, today of all days, is to say...

GO UTES!!
I worked at Primary Children's Hospital for 3 years and I still can't tell anyone much more than how to get to the hospital. Wretched!!

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