Z: A friend on Facebook raised the age-old Santa Barbara question this week: where is north?
She: Uh ... that way?
Z: Not so much. Directions are very confusing when you grow up in Santa Barbara. They’re unnatural.
She: There’s nothing natural about directions. The whole north-south-east-west thing is some weird conspiracy designed to make normal people feel like morons.
Z: It definitely doesn’t help to grow up in Santa Barbara. We’re on the West Coast. Highway 101 goes north-south. The only logical assumption is that the ocean is to the west of us, and the mountains are to the east.
She: If you say so. I admit I’m directionally challenged. I’m more of a, “Look! There are the mountains”-kind of a girl.
Z: And the assumptions all turn out to be wrong. The mountains are north and the beach is south. You’d think if you started swimming straight off the beach from California, you’d end up in Hawaii.
She: Wouldn’t a plane be easier?
Z: But not from here. If you started swimming from East Beach, and kept going straight, you’d end up in the Antarctic.
She: That just seems wrong. And cold.
Z: You know what else is wrong? If you get on the 101 going south, and then turn left on State Street ...
She: Which you can’t do anymore.
Z: ... back when you could. You’d turn left on State Street at the light, and then BAM you’re going north. Just like that. How can you make one left turn off the southbound freeway and be going north already?
She: Don’t ask me. I’m one of those people who is still confused by whether I’m driving “up” or “down” to Los Angeles. And now you’re saying it’s “over to.” Make it stop.
Z: I didn’t realize how permanently messed up I was until I went away for college. After I had already been living in a new town for three months, I realized I wasn’t sure where north was, so I made a guess that night as to where the sun was going to rise the next morning.
She: Wow. You sure make college sound fun.
Z: I missed by 130 degrees. It turns out I had absolutely no natural sense of direction.
She: See? We do have something in common. Although, I learned about my handicap at a much younger age. If we went anywhere outside of Santa Barbara with my parents and we got lost fewer than three times, there was a family victory dance.
Z: I think one of the most confusing places in town is at the end of Stearns Wharf. There’s a giant compass rose painted on the wooden planks, and north points directly at mountains that appear to be heading south.
She: North and south aren’t even in my vocabulary. If I’m giving someone directions, I’ll say, “toward the mountains,” or “toward the ocean,” or “Seriously? You’re asking me for directions?”
Z: I wonder if Koss will grow up with this confusion also, or if the GPS devices built into everything will eliminate the problem.
She: GPS is great but it doesn’t always have the answers either. Once we were in Colorado and my dad insisted on following the directions to turn right in 200 feet to get to our destination.
Z: So?
She: Despite the fact that the sign for our hotel was one foot ahead.
Z: Oh.
She: And despite the fact that following the GPS directions drove us right into a snow bank. On the plus side, that was the only time we got lost, so we still got to do our victory dance.
Z: Yes, dear.
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