Slice of Life 2022: 27 of 31- Asking for a friend...

   It's March, and March means the Slice of Life Story Challenge. All are welcome to join the challenge of noticing and writing about the moments of daily life that are stories.

Following someone around unfamiliar roads, especially when said someone is also unfamiliar with those roads offers opportunities to consider many metaphors.

We were supposed to leave the house at 8 for my nephew's 9 am tennis match, but, as  often happens when large groups are trying to coordinate departure times, we started slightly behind schedule. After just a couple of minutes into the ride from our airbnb house to the tennis complex, my brother, leading in his rental car, signaled and u-turned. I, with my mother in the passenger seat of my mother's car, followed. 

Not too much farther along, he signaled again, this time turning into into a neighborhood and wending his way through some quiet streets. I, with my mother wondering out loud why we were on said streets, followed. 

We emerged on what seemed to be the same road we'd been on before the neighborhood tour, and I considered asking my mother to pull up my own google maps, but decided against it. Instead, I followed. 

On a semi-state highway, carved and wound through New York rocky mountains, my brother stepped on the gas. I glanced at my mother, a speed-limit follower, and one to fret over speed, but I pressed my foot down on the gas. Yep, I continued to follow. 

Because the tennis match was against Army at West Point, there was a security check as we approached. Two signs indicated the lanes for entry. I didn't read them; I followed.

John's reverse lights went on, and his head came out of the driver's window. I read his lips and the sign. We were in the line for authorized entries, not the line for visitors. I backed up, let John shift into the correct lane, and...you guessed it, continued to follow. 

We had several more challenges before arriving well past 9 and catching the last point of George's first tennis match, including the wrong security gate, a long and slow-moving clearance check, and a few more u-turns -- any one of those last three challenges could have been a slice of life, especially the line to present special forms and id's to people behind the glass in a lower-level room with no cell service. 

What if George had only had one match (he didn't-- there were two more, and we saw plenty of tennis...), and I followed compliantly without really knowing where we were going, without looking around at my own environmental guideposts, and without ever taking charge and setting up my own navigation? 

Asking for some (school-aged) friends...