I’m a bad carpool candidate, and my friends now know why

Ian Clark

Guest columnist

I could never live in Tacoma. The city is wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t seem to enter the place without getting into trouble.

Cities are not my friends, you see. I am much more at home in a place like Gig Harbor, where people know my name and I can get away with jaywalking.

In a city, people do not know my name, and if I try to jaywalk I will end up as a smear on some crazed trucker’s windshield.

I could learn to live with this. The one urban trend that I cannot stand is Tacoma’s ant farm street layout. I cannot for the life of me navigate the city without getting lost, wandering aimlessly for hours and then ending up in a neighborhood with lots of scary people.

These people usually have tattoos and concealed weapons.

I can’t even get my friends to drive me around Tacoma. My very presence in the car angers the navigational gods, and it is not long before my friends, usually reliable in any driving situation, find themselves in the same scary neighborhood with the same psychopaths.

A perfect example of this took place not too long ago. I am the News Editor at my school newspaper, The Peninsula Outlook, a job that is as rewarding as it is stressful. The editorial board needs to unwind and relax after sending the paper to press, and, on this particular occasion, I suggested dinner at the Olive Garden.

The closest Olive Garden is in Tacoma, so we all agreed to meet there at 6 p.m. sharp. One of the editors, Amanda Gould, agreed to carpool with me; she hadn’t yet heard of my reputation.

We left Gig Harbor at 4:30 p.m. and crossed the bridge without any problems. Traffic was nonexistent and we arrived in Tacoma so early that I began to hope my driving problems were over.

We turned right off the freeway and continued into the Tacoma Mall district. At first, the drive was pleasant as Amanda and I discussed typical youthful topics. But after we had driven 10 miles, I grew uneasy.

“How long were we supposed to go on South 72nd Street?” Amanda asked.

I glanced at the directions. “One-tenth of a mile.”

“Ah.”

The car was silent for a while.

“We’re not on South 72nd Street, are we?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Ah.”

Silence again.

“Reckon we should turn back?”

I looked out the window. A roadside sign loomed out of the darkness. The graffiti on it read: “I’M GONNA EAT YOU!”

“Yeah, I think that would be a good idea,” I replied. “Uh, we should turn back fast, if you catch my drift.”

We pulled over and spun a quick U-turn. As we drove, we mulled over our predicament.

“We might want to pull over and ask for directions,” I suggested.

Amanda agreed and pulled into a gas station parking lot. I jumped out of the car and jogged up to the first person I saw.

Imagine, if you will, that you are a little Chinese woman sweeping the gas station’s stoop. You have lived in America for three months and your English is not very good. You look up to see a breathless American boy running toward you with wide eyes and disheveled hair. He is wearing a nice suit, but instead of dress shoes, he is wearing beat-up running sneakers.

It occurs to you that this kid probably just escaped from the insane asylum. He is also probably armed. You slowly back toward the door, fumbling for the lock with sweaty hands as the kid runs closer and closer.

“Hello!” He says in a frighteningly cheerful manner. “My friend and I are looking for the Olive Garden, and we can’t really seem to find it. Ha ha!”

His laugh is the unsettling sort of laugh you might expect from Hannibal Lector right before he eats you.

“Olive Garden” is probably a code word for some drug-trafficking ring, and his “friend” is almost certainly a large handgun.

The door won’t open. In a last-ditch effort to survive, you give the nutcase directions to the nearest Italian restaurant before he shoots you.

“Yes! Finally! There is a God after all!”

He runs off into the shadows, giggling madly.

At 6:45 p.m., Amanda and I pulled into the Olive Garden parking lot. It was, as the directions had said, one-tenth of a mile away from the freeway. The directions had neglected to add that the restaurant lay behind a solid wall of other buildings.

My friends don’t drive me anymore.

Ian Clark can be reached at scrumbum@comcast.net.