Rush of Adventure

My latest adventure was quite an interesting ride, but there are a few things you need to know about me before I begin its description:

1) I do not enjoy driving. I never have, and I probably never will. It just makes me nervous.

2) I have absolutely no sense of direction whatsoever. I understand the premise behind north, south, east, and west—Never Eat Soggy Waffles—but when you put me on the road, cardinal directions mean absolutely nothing to me. Incidentally, I can read a map quite well, on account of the fact that I am constantly lost, and I am excellent at u-turns.

3) I have long suspected that my less than effervescent, somewhat cool personality actually makes me slightly invisible, especially in the midst of a group of friendly extroverts. This suspicion will be important at the end of the story.

This adventure began when I asked one of the girls I work with at a Christian bookstore to go to the free Rush of Fools concert. Rush of Fools was the band for week three at the summer camp at which I worked, so I was eager hear them again. My friend, whom I’ll just call Sister Detour, readily agreed and we were set for our adventure. In the spirit of true concert goers, we decided to leave inordinately early so as to make sure to arrive on time and get fabulous seats. I had to drive approximately an hour to get to Sister Detour’s house, and I would have arrived as scheduled had traffic not been down to one lane on the interstate for about 10 miles; I was crawling along the interstate at a snail’s pace—not good. After I passed through that obstacle, the rain came. Rain probably isn’t a strong enough term. More like torrential downpour. Knuckles: white. Hands: ten and two. Eyes: straining. Visibility: I’m not even sure what that is at this point. Great. I was going to be late. Incidentally, my mapquest directions led me to a road closed for construction, so I had to call Sister Detour in order to get redirected onto a different path to her house, thus making me even later.

I did, in fact, arrive at Sister Detour’s house approximately twenty minutes after my prescribed arrival time, but as we had determined such an early start, we were fairly certain we would still be able to arrive in plenty of time to get decent seats for the concert. We got into Sister Detour’s car and away we went. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to print off the directions. However, I could remember the numbers from the directions, albeit in random order, and Sister Detour was able to interpret directions out of my jumbled memory, and so our journey began.

At this point, our trip to the concert turned into a massive amount of absolutely unnecessary detours. Rather than trying to describe all of the crazy, ridiculous paths we took in order to get to Life Church, let me summarize some of the lessons learned from these detours:

· Highway 169 and Highway 69 are not in fact the same thing, nor do they go the same direction.

· South is not the same thing as Southwest.

· Trust your instincts—if you remember a number 159 in the directions, when you find that road you should stay on it.

· Never ever trust orange signs that say “Detour Lone Elm Road.” These signs will in fact only lead you in squares and circles for at least 30 minutes when you are already running late.

· The sketchy gas station attendant had no idea where the church was, but knew that we needed to be on the other side of all the construction creating the need for the detour in the first place. Talk about unhelpful.

· Can I say again, trust your instincts? Yes. Trust your instincts. DO NOT TURN RIGHT TO FOLLOW DETOUR SIGNS. If we would have kept going straight we would have saved ourselves about thirty minutes of driving and senseless detours. We were going the right direction all along. Not even kidding.

We arrived at the concert about ten minutes before it started, and the doors were already closed. The ushers told us that they had to count seats to see if there were any more available. After two and a half hours of driving and detours, I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to get in. The disappointment was overwhelming. After a few minutes they opened the doors again with one hundred seats left, and we were able to go inside: sweet relief. The concert was great—a bit of a different feel from when they led worship at the youth camp, but still wonderful.

After the concert Sister Detour and I waited in the autograph line so I could say hello. This was the big moment. I had told Sister Detour that I knew the band, and that they probably wouldn’t remember my name but should recognize my face. I could think of two potential outcomes from the autograph line: A) They would recognize me, I’d say hello and be happy; or B) They wouldn’t remember me, thus confirming my suspicions of my own invisibility and instantly eliminating all of my credibility in the eyes of my work colleague. All of our detours and senseless driving had led up to this one single moment. Oh the nerves. Visible or invisible? Credibility or lack thereof? The big moment: I approached the table. “Hey remember this one time at Ridgecrest…” Success! They did in fact remember me, we engaged in some quick, friendly banter, I took a picture and we were hustled on through the line. Invisibility shield is off! Rush of Fools remembered me, thus validating my existence for yet another day. Thanks guys.