No Rejoicing in Chicago

It was supposed to be so easy, a romantic road trip together.

Leaving Madison, I was to pick up my fiance’-now-husband

in Chicago and continue on to his brother’s home

in Kentucky for a long weekend.

It was long before Garmins, Mapquest, or cellphones;

I didn’t have a map, but not a problem because he

called to give me directions before I left.

His directions, of course, were freeways, entrance

and exit ramps, while I, naively ignorant of Chicago,

was picturing city streets and avenues.

Listening carefully, I sketched the map on a sheet of paper,

all straight lines and right angles: turn right, go straight,

then left, straight, another left… up to the door of the hotel.

What could go wrong?

And then, I was in Chicago, at night, on a freeway,

going fast. For 3 hours, one freeway and then another,

then back on the first, then heading in the reverse direction.

I finally found myself in a neighborhood, a neighborhood

that would have looked scary even in daylight.

Desperate now, I stopped at a convenience store

to ask for directions; the cashier (or maybe he was an angel)

knew the exact hotel where I was supposed to be 3 hours earlier.

Perfect directions, I reached the hotel, entered the lobby,

and faced my beloved...no, not relieved to find I hadn’t been

in an accident or murdered or kidnapped,

but angry, really, really angry.

Then I got really, really angry because he was

and I may have had a few second thoughts about

spending the rest of my life with this "callous,

insensitive, uncaring and unsympathetic" person.

The lost had been found, but there was

no rejoicing in Chicago that night.

And the all-night, silent, tense drive from Chicago

to Lexington felt much longer than the atlas indicated.

— cmshingle