Where Am I?

There’s no doubt about it, I am a very distracted person. Since I was a little kid I have had horrible sense of direction whatsoever. Even if I had been to a place numerous times before, I still got lost. And as a matter of fact, sadly or rather pathetically I still do, although fortunately not as bad as I did before.

One of the many and possibly worst times I got lost, (not for me, but for my parents), was when I was about 11 years old. It happened one summer while staying at my grandmother’s place, which not coincidentally is in the same neighborhood as my aunt’s place. You would think her neighborhood is pretty complex and confusing, and getting lost is easy, well it isn’t, at all. There are only four buildings in the whole neighborhood, and they are actually not that different, that’s all there is to it.

So everything started when my mom sent me to take some radish from my aunt’s house to my grandmother’s for dinner that night. I, of course very confidently, because well, why shouldn’t I be, there’s not much mystery to it, took the short cut to my grandma’s house, went to the 18^th floor and knocked on the apartment 1811. Well guess what, it wasn’t the right building.

I don’t like to think of myself as a strange person, but I guess undeniably I am a little weird, and I occasionally like to imagine odd stuff, or in this case, I guess I just imagined what seemed possible. So, after being knocking at this same door for what seemed like a lifetime, with no answer whatsoever, I thought to myself that perhaps everyone was watching a movie, or doing something involving loud noises. Not only that, but I also somehow thought to myself that I could hear my grandmother talking inside the apartment assuring me the apartment wasn’t empty. Back then, this was completely normal to me, of course now I just think of myself being absolutely weird and silly.

I guess it must have been a really loud and annoying knock, because eventually people from apartments near where I was, started opening their doors and interrogating me on my being there knocking for almost forty minutes. Yes, it had already been almost forty minutes. There were even some people who just peeked through their half opened doors, gave me a “what the hell are you doing” look, and immediately closed their doors back again. I remember this lady that tried to play the nice lady role and tried to apparently help me, however now I can see she was just trying to get me out of the building, and honestly when I think about it now, I can’t blame her.

All that time, however long it was, (according to my dad almost two hours, but this is not possible, besides he is an extremely exaggerated man), all I was thinking about was, why haven’t they opened the door yet, and how badly I was craving for food. Not once did I question myself of being in the wrong place, or why hadn’t my mother showed up yet, since she was supposed to come right after me.

Ultimately, it all ended when my grandmothers best friend came out of the elevator followed by two policemen. And a moment later came my mother crying, my father with his usual worried face, and everyone else who was supposed to be at the dinner. I got hugs from everyone, except the policemen obviously who just gave me blank, probably annoyed looks. And I remember how confused I was, but not at all, feeling anything like all these people were.

I learned later that my parents had called all the security from the entire neighborhood on me, and I had been looked for all over the area, in every floor of every building, and had even been notified to all doormen and people around the zone. As silly as it sounds, and as it all started, it created chaos in my entire family, even those who where not there that day. But also created a memory, one I should be ashamed to tell, since its really ridiculous, but aren’t because it is who I was and partly whom I still am, an extremely disoriented and distracted person.