Wednesday, October 19, 2005

 

my instincts are HORRIBLE

Well, to amend that, I have pretty good instincts when it comes to people and social situations. But when it comes to guessing the amount of items in a jar, or directions, or other things like that, I am totally way off-base.

In middle school my seventh grade teacher would have candy in a jar every month, and we'd get to guess how many of that item was there. Each time the size and shape of the jar would change (in addition to the type of candy), but no matter what, I always off by at least 100. Sometimes I overestimated, and other times I was totally under. And the delusional thing is, each time I would think "This time, I am SO CLOSE. I am totally going to win." I'd be sitting there at my little desk, all full of hope and picturing running home, eating the candy all the way down the street. And maybe sharing with people.

But really, I was never even close. Ever.

The same "way off-base" concept applies to the metro station where I'm living. This stop has about five exits, all quite a few blocks from one another. The closest one to the apartment is five blocks. So if I get off at the furthest exit, it's about a 10 block walk back here. So at the end of the day, when I'm tired and not in the mood for running around lost and cursing my lack of direction, I'm pretty invested in leaving by the right exit.

So as a way to leave by the right exit, I remembered one day that the one I wanted has a circular picture of a dog wearing an astronaut outfit over the archway. Good enough. I mean, how many pictures of ugly dogs are there in a metro station? After a couple of days of leaving by the dog astronaut, and realizing each time when I got outside that I was at the wrong door, I realized two things.

1) There are actually two pictures of ugly space dogs, and I want the one with the black background.

and

2) My instincts, every single time, lead me to the wrong exit.

I'd get off the train, not know where I was on the platform, and think "okay, which way do I go?" I'd then follow those instincts, and end up at the wrong dog picture. I also have a poor short term memory (much like a parrot, the key for me to remember things is to repeat it over and over), so for a while, I couldn't remember if I wanted the black or gray background. In fact, I'm pretty sure I didn't realize that there are two pictures - I just went with the flow.

So every evening now when I get off the train, I step out of the doors, hesitate, and ask myself:

"why way are my instincts telling me to go?"

And then I immediately head in the opposite direction. And I haven't been wrong yet.

Comments:
Attempt to get on the train at the same spot on the platform at work everyday until the station becomes familiar to you. I have it worked out so that I can go to either Braintree, Quincy Adams, Quincy Centre, Wollaston, and JFK without walking more than 10 feet to the stairs!

PS. I'm not lazy, I'm just very effiecent. :P
 
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