Maps

Creative writing exercise #6: Imagine an alien has landed at your office. Explain, in meticulous detail, directions on how to get from the office to home.

Well, Alien, it's the end of the day. Let's push CTRL+ALT+DELETE on the keyboard and then ENTER to lock our computer so that nobody else can use it while we're gone. Then we'll put on our jacket, which is hanging on the back of our chair, get our purse from the shelf on our left and our lunch bag off the desk on our right. We're ready to go.

We have to navigate through the newsroom. Once we go around Jim's desk, the path is clear to the main walkway. We'll be stepping from ugly gray carpet to ugly gray tile, so don't be alarmed when our shoes start to make noise. We walk to the front of the room, and turn left at the bank of TVs, all of which will be playing some sort of news since we leave at 6 p.m.

Once we push through the ugly gray double doors, we're in the break room. The floor is now an ugly brown. We'll walk between the cafeteria-style tables on our left and the vending machines on our right. We have to turn right toward the stairwell, or else we'll hit the brick wall. We follow the steps as far as they go, then turn left out of the double doors and we find ourselves just inside the glass doors marked "Employee Entrance." We say good night to the security guards out of courtesy, but they're not paying much attention to us, so if we forget it's not a big deal.

We pass through the glass doors and turn left. Our car will be parked at a meter somewhere nearby. Once we get in, we lock the door immediately. Lots of shady folks in this area, especially if it's after dark.

We have to turn east on McCullough Ave. to get to the highway, which is what we want to do. Once we're headed that direction, we make sure we're in the left lane, because we'll need to turn at the next light. We have to go under the highway first, and when we do we always scan the sidewalks on either side and see what the homeless people are up to. Every once in a while they're arguing with each other, but most of the time they're just sitting.

Now we've passed under the highway and the light is ahead. When it gives us the green, we turn left and directly onto the ramp that leads up to the highway. Once we're on it, we have to merge left into the next lane, because the original lane becomes an Exit Only lane to merge onto another highway. After making that lane change, we have to look for another opening to merge left one more time. (The new lane will become another Exit Only lane.) For good measure, we always move left one more time. This puts us in the middle lane for the rest of the highway drive and usually the traffic moves steadily in this lane.

As we go north on the highway, we pass a lot of interesting things. To the right: Sam's, which has good burgers and better live music. To the left: The Pearl, one of the coolest spots in town and home to a bookshop, the culinary academy, some boutiques, restaurants and a weekly farmer's market. After that, we pass between two universities and, on our left, the large rock wall that is the outside of the coolest football stadium in town. A little further ahead and to our right is The Quarry, a huge shopping/dining/entertainment center that has an awesome ice cream shop, the Whole Foods, the UT Co-op and only a few other places worth visiting. (Sorry, P.F. Changs. You're overrated.)

We're about halfway there, Alien. Coming up is the cloverleaf that connects our highway to the city's inner loop. We don't want to take it, but it's fun to feel like we're at the bottom of a bowl of spaghetti when we drive under the curving ramps. Now we're about to pass the airport. It's on our right, and once we go by the entrance and the bright orange hangars that hold the private planes, we'll see the runway. Sometimes, if we're lucky, a plane will be landing as we drive under it. There's a lighted bridge that goes over all 10 lanes of the highway and access road that guides the planes onto the runway. It gets loud if one is landing as we drive under the bridge, but it's a cool thing to see.

I'm sorry to tell you, Alien, but here is where the journey gets boring. For some unknown reason, the cars all creep to a near standstill. We inch along for about half a mile and then, just as suddenly, there's all kinds of room to drive. It never make sense. We just have to deal with it. There are plenty of neon signs and digital billboards for you to look at on either side of the highway if you like. I think there's nothing much to see -- it's all fast food chains, drug stores, gas stations and a few big office buildings -- but knock yourself out.

Finally! Our exit! We have to cross into the far right lane and then go down the hill that is the exit ramp. We have the right of way, so the traffic on the access road below is supposed to yield to us, but they don't always. Here's a good rule of thumb: Move, again, to the center lane of the access road because if we go all the way to the right lane (which we'll have to do so we can turn on our street) it's inevitable that the car in front of us will slow to a glacial pace to turn into the steakhouse parking lot. Once we pass that steakhouse, we can move into the right lane. Nothing will slow us down but the light.

When we get to the light, we turn right and stay in the right hand lane. It's a little curvy, and people drive much too fast for my taste. On our left is the delicious Greek food place and the Irish pub. On the right is the apartments we don't live in, but once we pass those we're driving alongside the apartments we do live in. We pass the first three driveways of the complex and turn right into the last possible one, which is just before the bright sign for the church next door.

There's a card in our wallet that we push against the sensor to open the wrought iron gate. Sometimes it sticks. Use the card again and it will open. We drive through the open gate, slowly -- kids like to play here -- until the parking lot curves to the right, at which time we must curve with it. We go over the speed bump and down the little hill, avoid the two big potholes that somebody should really fix already and then park wherever we can find a place. We are home.