An ex excuse

My younger was invited to a bat mitzvah this evening and she was to be picked up by a parent of one of her friends -- we have carpools set up so that we can spread the driving out a bit. Today, I get a pass while other parents pay me back for my driving last week. Sounds like a perfect system.

So the parent was supposed to pick her up at 5:20 so she could get to the event by the 5:30 start time. 5:20 came and went. As did 5:30. My kid called around and heard that others had been picked up, so we waited. Truthfully, this event is only a couple of minutes from our house so I could have taken her but we couldn't get in touch with the driver and didn't want the designated driver to show up and wonder where we went. So we waited.

At 5:40, a car pulls down our street. In it, an apologetic mother rolls down her window and yells out that she is sorry for being late but that she got lost trying to find where we live. I smile knowlingly and move on with my day as my younger gets buckled in. But the fact is, the excuse is completely untenable and I am offended that the mom either still believes it is valid or thinks so little of me that she figures she can hide behind an invalid excuse.

Here's my thinking. We have maps. Maps are like pictures of the streets and we can use them to figure out where we are going Had this mother spent 3 minutes before she left the house and looked up our street on a map, she could have found us quite easily. Secondly, we have these websites that can give maps and routes. Anyone who knows that he doesn't know how to get somewhere need only click on a site and print out detailed directions. That this woman did neither is ridiculous. Thirdly, in this day and age, we all have cell phones. If she had called us as soon as she lost her way, we could have directed her. Did she? Did she call to say she was lost or that we could expect her a few minutes late? Nope, nothing.

So there I was, mulling over how stupid this woman is in her lack of preparation, lack of common sense and lack of courtesy (and by the way, I have driven her child and had to find her house. I used a map), and my younger texts me from the car. She reports "they have a GPS." Strike 4, at least. You have a GPS and you still get lost? You have to TRY to get lost, then. Another text comes in: "I had to direct them to ____(the party site)." This means that they didn't know where it was being held, didn't plug even that in to the GPS, had made no plans about this trip. I can't even be sure that this woman has her license. Flat out embarrassing.

Certain excuses are being outmoded. You can't claim that you got lost anymore unless you want to admit that you did no prep work and didn't take advantage of standard technology. It would be like claiming "my virtual dog ate my email." It just doesn't work.