Sharon is my friend. We have been friends for over forty years. This is an amazing accomplishment, since if you do the quantum math right, we have been friends longer than I have been on this earth. She, on the other hand has been on this earth for, let’s just say longer than forty years.
We have accomplished a lot in those forty years of friendship. We have nearly driven into a rather large lake, been so buried in ditches that the car had to be pulled out by a tractor, three times. We have gotten lost in Hibbing, Chisholm, Buhl,and Duluth. None of these incidents were my fault.
We terrorized our Girl Scout troop during a night-time hike in the woods one cool October evening. BTW that too, was totally not my fault. I am innocent of that particular deed.
We were both intimidated by a ninety-odd year old lady with a cane. She actually called Sharon a liar, and beat-up on my poor friend with her fist. BTW that was totally not my fault.
Once when we were going through a house-burning training session, (we were both in our local volunteer fire department, as were our poor husbands), we managed to embarrass ourselves by trying to quickly pull the bunker pants off of a live fireman, who happened to be minding his own business, just lying around, resting on the ground. Uhm! That may have partially been my fault.
This week we had to go to a meeting in Buhl, population about 1,000.
“We are going the scenic, and quicker route down Pozar Road.”
“Please,” pleaded my long suffering husband, “just go through Chisholm.” Population 5,000.
Sharon's husband, on learning of our plans to save two miles was horrified. He also highly recommended that we just go through Chisholm. Did I mention the population of around 5,000?
We drove down Pozar Road. It was a very pretty drive. When we got to a paved road we turned right. We drove to town. We had arrived with no difficulty.
“Oh look! Road construction.”
No worries we turned toward the gas station.
“Wow! This town has sure changed since last year. That's a new gas station.” Me speaking in an awed voice.
Sharon speaking in an even aweder voice, “That's not a new gas station. That gas station is in Chisholm. We're in Chisholm!”
Speaking is unison: “How did we get to Chisholm?” (population 5,000)
We finally made our way to the highway, and drove the five additional miles to Buhl.
“Do you remember the address?”
“No, but I th-h-i-n-kk we turn down this street. Oops! That's a dead end. It must be the next one, or possibly the next.”
We were running out of Buhl. (population 1,000)
“There! See where that guy is leaning against that building, and talking on his cell phone? I'm pretty sure that's where we turn.”
It was. We were there. Nobody else was. It was the wrong day.
“Well, at least we know how to get here for the meeting next week,” I said. “Did you happen to catch the name of the street?”
"No, but no problem,” Sharon assured me. “We turn at the corner where that guy was leaning on the building and talking on his cell phone.”
“Okay, good plan,” I told her. “We won't have any problems next time.”