THIS IS NOT I-40!!!!!

Let me say right out I am not a sexist. I love men—I even married one!

I know that men can be just as talented and clever as women can be. I think men are very capable, very open-minded people—except when it comes to cars and directions.

The story that follows isn’t about men not asking for directions—truisms don’t make for particularly interesting reading if you ask me. No, this story is about men acting silly and wildly unobservant and, well, arrogant, all while in a red Chrysler minivan. It is a story not about men being wrong but rather about their often amazing conviction that they are right.

Our tale begins with, what else, a trip. I and my very large extended family spent last week, as we do every August, up in the mountains of North Carolina at, for lack of a better term, a camp for families. While there, we relax and, if all goes well, enjoy each others’ company. We hike, swim, read and unwind.

This year, we decided to take a rafting trip down the Upper Pigeon River in Tennessee. The put-in spot was about an hour from where we stay and so, on Wednesday, after breakfast, we piled into two mini-vans and headed west. Both cars had maps and directions, but our route was simple: 26 to 40 to the turnoff.

There were 13 of us heading out on that fateful day. I drove one van—my passengers were my friend Carolyn, my two younger kids, one of their friends and my niece and nephew. The other van, driven by Carolyn’s husband, held my husband, my two brothers and my two oldest sons. Our two cars pulled onto the highway, me in the front, and headed west toward Tennessee.

It was an absolutely beautiful day for a mountain drive. The mist that gives the Smoky Mountains their names curled about the tops of the trees. The sun shone in a Carolina Blue sky. The kids in my car watched one of my all-time favorite movies, Galaxy Quest; Carolyn and I sat in the front and listened and laughed. It was idyllic…until my cell phone rang.

I answered it. “What the *&*% are you doing?” hollered my brother. “Pull off, pull off! You’re supposed to be on 40W!”

“I am on 40W,” I said, rather taken aback. (I did look at the road to be sure—it looked like I-40 to me.) “Where are you?”

“You took the wrong turn,” my brother yelled. “Get off! Get off!”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “This is I-40.”

With a deep growl of impatience, my brother said, “I’m putting your husband on.”

I promptly handed the phone to Carolyn—I was, after all, driving on a major interstate. I could hear my husband speaking forcefully to Carolyn. “You took the wrong turn! You don’t know what you’re doing! Pull over! Pull over!”

I thought, “They seem so certain. Could I be mixed up and confused? It’s possible. It has happened a few times before.”

So, swinging over three lanes of traffic, I pulled off the highway and pulled to the side of the exit road. As I sat, looking at the sign that said I-40W, I heard Carolyn say, “We have pulled over! We have pulled over!”

“Pull over now,” hollered my husband. “Youall are so…”

Then, suddenly, the phone went dead.

After a moment, I shook my head, pulled back onto 40W and waited for the men to call back. They didn’t. After about five minutes, I called them. My brother answered the phone.

There was a pause.“Um, it wasn’t you. It was us. We were um, we were following the wrong mini-van…. We’re almost back to 40W. Uh, bye.”

The punch line of this story is: I have a personalized license plate.

Men in their cars—gotta love ‘em. I know I do.