We leave tomorrow for a sucky family reunion. I don't want to go, but some of my extended family have never met my six-year-old. It's time I made an effort.
 
I do not have a good attitude toward these people. God's working on me, but I ain't gonna change by tomorrow.
 
Anyway I have a more pressing need.
 
I don't know if you pray, meditate, light candles, or blow butt-bubbles in the bathtub, but whatever your office or exercise, please do some for me. Finger your beads and pray that I make it to Mexia Texas for the reunion.
 
You see, I have a little problem with directions. We'll be fine as long as my wife drives or is awake, but if she falls asleep we're in trouble.
 
The thing is, I sometimes end up in the wrong city. I know. It's hard to believe, but it happens. I get caught up in my thoughts or whatever, and I lose track of everything. I'm like a madman, staring through the windshield, careening through the night on a road to nowhere.
 
It's like a Twilight Zone episode when I snap and figure out that I'm totally lost. I hate the terrible moment of discovery, the sinking feeling, the panic and disorientation. I hate it like poison.
 
I'm capable of almost every kind of directional mishap, but mine fall mainly into three categories.
 
The V
Sometimes two roads meet in a city from slightly different directions, say southeast and southwest. If you leave town on the wrong road, you get farther away from your destination with every mile you travel. I once drove 60 miles and thought I had arrived, only to discover I was in a strange city 20 miles to the east of where I was going.
 
“Pulling a V” stings a little, but at least you've made some progress. You might only lose one mile for every three you travel.
 
A corollary pain comes into play when you try to find a road that cuts across the V, taking you back to the correct highway. Don't try to make an A out of a V. That's how I once got lost in the middle of the King Ranch.
 
The Bypass
The Bypass happens when you're not paying attention and drive right through your destination city. The amount of pain you feel depends on how long it takes you to figure out what you've done. Every mile you drive past the town is a mile you have to drive back. Ouch.
 
My record is driving two hours past Livingston on the night I ended up in Palestine Texas. My family still talks about that at every reunion.
 
I'm sure I'll hear about it again tomorrow.
 
The Wrong Way
The mother of all mishaps occurs when you stop for gas and get back on the road going the wrong way. This one really hurts. When you've gone the wrong way, you've got to work your ass off just to get back to where you started. One hour gets you three. Howya like them apples?
 
A couple years ago I was driving home from another family reunion that sucked. We should have been home in two hours, but everyone went to sleep and I went northish instead of southish. Two hours later I was humming along when my wife woke up. She stretched and looked around. Just as she began to get the feeling that something was wrong, we passed a sign. I'll never forget the tone of her voice when she said, “Why did that sign say ‘Welcome to Yoakum?'”
 
Nice. That, my friends, is how you turn a crappy two-hour drive into a six-hour journey from hell. I so enjoyed each kid waking up to receive the news with her own distinctive howl of grief.
 
I shit you not. I need your prayers. I need my wife to stay awake. I need intervention.
 
I need to get to Mexia because the only thing worse than enduring a family reunion is discovering that the four hour trip home has turned to twelve.

The Preacher

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