Mapmaker, mapmaker, go find another cause, ok?

It seems that people will still insist on giving me directions even after I tell them I'm navigation impaired. Even after I tell them that I'm just nodding intelligently to make them feel better and nothing they say is actually making sense to me.

I'm wondering if there's something I should do to deal with this. Sticking my fingers in my ears and going lalaalalalaa! is likely to be ineffective, as is an honest admission, so I'm thinking, the next time someone attempts to tell me how to get someplace (despite my cries for mercy), here's what I'm going to do:

1. Listen very attentively. Like, super attentively. Focus my eyes right on their mouths and follow the movements of their tongues. And then frown, like I don't understand why their tongues are moving that way.

2. Lean in, look deep into their eyes and in my huskiest, I-want-you-NOW* voice, say, "Did you mean 'left from Senapati Bapat Marg'?"

3. Smile brightly. Then look away, hurt. Then giggle. Rinse and repeat.

Okay, that's all I've got.


Although anyone who knows me well knows I will have to work REALLY hard at this. Wanting someone usually just reduces me to a goggle-eyed, incoherent, gawkward mess.

Fascinating insights into the working of my brain.

OR, why people like me ought to have restricted access to the Internet.

I opened a wiki page to research something, and then forgot what the thing was. I have the attention span of a gnat.

I only know of gnats as vaguely insect-like creatures. I have never actually encountered one.

(Not that that stops me from passing judgement on their limited attention spans)

Hey, how do I know I haven't encountered one if I don't know what one LOOKS like?

Wait! I have a wiki page open! I will now find out what a gnat looks like, and consequentially, whether or not I have ever encountered one.

Wiki has no gnat pictures! Now I will never know!

Oh wait, there's google images. Googlingooglingoogling...the hell? Gnats look just like mosquitoes!

Ah! And wordweb implies 'gnat' is a generic term for 'various small biting flies'. Unless you're British, in which case gnats ARE mosquitoes.

So it turns out I HAVE encountered a gnat before. Only, I always thought of them as small, black, shiny, and vaguely beetle-oid. It's strange to find out they're just mosquitoes.

It reminds of my 5th birthday when half the presents I received were in my real name, and the other half were addressed to 'Aparajita'. Because that was supposed to be my 'official' name, though for some mysterious reason, it never quite took.

Now I know how you felt, gnats.

Ah shuddup, you'll live.

Though not for very long.

But I guess that's okay. You're gnats, what the hell do YOU have to acheive in life??

Not that I've done much on the acheiving front.

(Dammit! I can never spell 'achieve' right!)

Which is appalling, considering I edit stuff for a living.

But I DID spell 'appalling' right.

Fuck you, gnats, I bet YOU can't spell 'appalling'.

(I just gloated over one-upping gnats. This has got to be a new low.)

Not that you'd ever need to. I mean, where would you possibly use 'appalling' in a sentence?

"Your haemoglobin levels are appalling, human!"

(But if you can't spell appalling, you sure as hell can't spell haemoglobin.)

And then the human in question would cringe and feel all inadequate about being yelled at by a mosquito.

Though I feel adequate enough; I can spell appalling and haemoglobin and I bet I have enough of it (haemoglobin) in MY blood to feed a large army of gnats. Ha!

I should probably stop typing now.