You Can't Lead a Man to a Retirement Seminar, Because You Can't Make Him Think

Hey! Have you heard? Val is planning to retire at the end of this school year plus one more. And because she is a planner, she registered last summer to attend a retirement seminar in January. Not that she's been looking forward to putting herself out to pasture or anything.

The letter reminding me (!) of that seminar date, just in case I might have forgotten (AS IF!), arrived last week. It is right in my back yard, at the local junior college. I know my way around the local junior college. After all, as valedictorian, I received a scholarship there. Nothing like soaking up two years of knowledge for free. So I was not terribly concerned when I saw that those kind people who run the state teachers' retirement division had included a terrible map to steer future retirees to the right place.

This seminar kind of covers a fourth of the state. So, as Yarnell Poindexter told Mattie Ross of near Dardanelle in Yell County in True Grit about the hangin'..."Everbody comes in from EVERPLACE!" Not that we're having a hanging on the town square, you know, with vendors selling snacks and kids chasing each other around all willy-nilly. But a lot of teachers will come in from several counties away, and might not know how to find the local junior college.

If I was not familiar with the area, I would be hard-pressed to find that local junior college using that map. It shows a highway, a business route that intersects it, and a big black star for the location. In fact, while Hick was jouncing the bed this morning as he tied his work boots, there being no other place in the house, of course, to put on work boots other than the edge of the bed, where your wife who has been ill all Christmas break and is still fighting a cough all night long, has finally been able to slip into a slumber around 2:00 a.m...I casually mentioned that he needed to meet me there at the designated day and time, and that good thing I knew where I was going, because that map was terrible.

"Where is the map? I haven't seen it."

"Doesn't matter. You won't be able to tell anything from that map. Go to the Little Theater. Just drive past the fieldhouse, past the first parking lot around the curve, and park in the second or third lot on the left. The Little Theater is right there."

"I'd still like to see the map."

"I'll go online and print you a better map. This one is no good."

Later in the morning, after disappearing for a couple of hours, then sitting on the long couch and complaining for a while, Hick came over to the table by his La-Z-Boy where I was so comfortably ensconced with a blankie (haven't you heard, I've been sick), and started rummaging around in the pile of utility statements and my tabloids and my plastic bag for discarded Puffs With Lotion.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for that map."

"I won't be THERE! Besides, I told you that map is no good. Go down the main entrance, past the fieldhouse, around the curve, past the first parking lot on the left, and park in the second or third parking lot on the left. The Little Theater is right there."

"I don't know what you're doing!"

"You are welcome to pay the bills and file the statements any time."

"I don't know why you have to be such a smart-a$$. I'm just trying to find that map. You don't know where you're going."

"I know EXACTLY where I'm going. And I've told you twice."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know where the fieldhouse is, right? We've been there before. Go past it. Around the curve. Past the first parking lot on the left. It's for faculty. Park in the second or third parking lot on the left. They're for students. The Little Theater is right there. With a sidewalk from the parking lots."

"How am I going to meet you if you don't know where you're going? You want me to be there, but you won't give me a map how to find it!"

"FINE! I'll get out that map. It's useless. But if you can't figure it out from my instructions, I'll GET YOU THAT MAP!"

"Whatever. If I get there, I get there. If I don't, I don't."

As with every end to every disagreement with Hick, he stomped out and disappeared. He came back to get The Pony for his bowling league. While they were gone, I used the opportunity to get the letter and map out of my purse. Yep. Little Theater. I put the useless map on top of Hick's bananas. He always looks there. That's where his cash allowance appears once a week. I'm a regular Pavlov.

After Hick and The Pony returned from bowling, they started a project of exchanging a small pipe for a larger pipe to get more water to the shower in the boys' bathroom. Just what we need, to make it easier for them to use all the hot water. Hick must have looked at that useless map, because he had to comment on it while he was in the bathroom with the overhead light/vent fan buzzing, and I was in the living room.

"That meeting is in the Highway Patrol building."

"It is not. It's in the Little Theater."

"That map shows that it's in the Highway Patrol building."

"That map is useless. Like I told you. That great big star is over the intersection. Right where the big concrete sign says Local Junior College. The entrance road. Just so people can find their way to the college. They'll probably put up some signs leading people around to the Little Theater. OR they'll get online and see where it is."

"That map shows it right in the Highway Patrol building."

"They wouldn't have a retirement seminar for so many teachers in the Highway Patrol building. There's nowhere for people to sit."

"Well, the college owns that building right there beside it. It's their police academy."

"That's NOT where you're going. You go to the Little Theater. Past the fieldhouse. Around the curve. Past the first parking lot on the left. Into the second or third parking lot on the left. THAT'S where it is, in the LITTLE THEATER."

"Huh. The map shows that it's in the Highway Patrol building. They sent out the map. That must be where it is."

"HERE! I'm printing out a campus map right now!"

"I don't want a campus map. Just tell me where it is."

"I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU WHERE IT IS! Do you even remember what building?"

"Yes! The Arts and Sciences Building, you said."

"NO I DIDN'T! It's in the LITTLE THEATER! Pony! Go down and get that map off the printer and bring it up. And a highlighter."

"I don't need a map! I don't want it."

"FINE! I'll burn the map. You'll either find me or you won't. I don't know why you can't listen. I've told you five times how to get there. And I TOLD you that map they sent was no good. But you want to go by that map. Fine. Go to the Highway Patrol building. We won't be there."

"I don't need a map. I'll figure it out. You want me to go there but you won't tell me where. YOU don't know where it's at."

Au contraire. Val knows EXACTLY where SHE'S going.