I have once again been asked to make a pie for a popular Larned event.
Remember last year? Oh, you don’t?
Let me refresh your memory.
Raisin cream pie. Does that ring a bell?
If you recall, last year there was no one volunteering for the “raisin cream pie.” I naively volunteered. After all, how hard could that be? I can read directions!
Consider my ignorance akin to something a kid would say, “Mom, if I read the Motor Vehicle book on driving, I can definitely drive the car. I can do it!”
This year, the brave soul in charge of pies, Gladys Seewhipple, asked me again. Last year, it was the meringue that threw me. Shoot, I couldn’t even spell the word.
This time I am making a coconut cream pie.
I have never been a pie maker. I love pie. But, I don’t do pies.
However, my mother used to make chocolate pies. She baked the crust, cooked the pudding, and dumped it into the shell. No big deal. That was my experience with making pies!
I don’t follow directions very well; maybe that’s the problem. The truth is; I do not follow directions that come with gadgets, or that involve putting together any things that come in pieces. I like the challenge, and I think I know more than the paper instructions.
Oh foolish and silly me.
As a result, I have totally wiped out computers. After I had deleted several .dll files, I learned to keep my busy delete finger off that key. Did I Google for instructions? Yes. Did I follow them? Nope.
Actually I didn’t understand the instructions. That’s the truth.
And yes, I don’t know my physical directions, North, South, East, West, very well either. You see, I grew up in an area where you turned right at the next corner, then go a mile and turn left.
I definitely have my right and left sensors working accurately.
If only folks would give directions to anywhere using the left, right, method! I don’t understand the go north, and then turn east, driving instructions when I am driving from one unfamiliar location to another.
I get lost.
It doesn’t matter if I’m in a city or the country. I just plain get turned around.
If there is an intersection where I need to turn, I turn the wrong way, every time. If I were playing a roulette wheel it would be no different. Red? Then it’s black. The same principle applies to turning at the intersections when I am guessing.
Let me explain.
The last time in Tulsa, I visited a friend in the hospital. When I left the hospital, and started to meander back to familiar territory, I got lost. As it turned out, I couldn’t get out of the town. I drove for at least 3 hours trying to find my way out. I thought I was going north, since the hospital was on the south end of town. At least I think it was on the south side.
At that time, I didn’t know how to work the GPS on my phone, so I pulled up to a gas station, got out, and asked inside where I could go to get on such and such highway.
The attendant had no clue where we were. He had only lived in Tulsa for a short time. And he couldn’t speak English very well. I was squinting and grimacing, trying to figure out what he was saying. I have learned that if I don’t understand, then just pretend I do! I could see that his directions and my comprehension were not going to get better.
I returned to the car, and fiddled with the phone to see if I could figure out the GPS. Since I didn’t know where I was, and I hadn’t read the directions originally to how to use the GPS, I was stumped. So, I sat in the car and cried, just from frustration.
I played some more with my cell phone, and finally figured out which direction was north. I headed out for the highway which would lead to the Tulsa Turnpike, eventually. As I drove north on their “Broadway” or whatever it was named, I arrived at the enter ramp. Oh glory!
Bars. Closed. DETOUR.
What? Where am I. Will someone please help?
Do you hear me? Have you been in this predicament?
At that point I would have paid someone to lead me out!
This was my PIE experience all over again!
I hung my head out the window and asked a construction worker near the detour how I could get to that road running above me. He pointed to the right. I think it was east.
As I drove down the road alongside the highway, there was a curb or divider separating me from entering an “up ramp”. I couldn’t turn around. I was on a One-Way Road. I needed to go back “that” way. I truly considered driving the car over the divider to make the connection.
I swear that this is how people go crazy and do ridiculous, dangerous things on the road.
I got out of there eventually, obviously. But I have learned that I better figure out the directions first. I do get lost in the easiest situations.
Now let’s talk about the pie. It looks like an easy, easy recipe.
But, I think ... no, I KNOW I have been down this road before.

Judi Tabler lives in Pawnee County and is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune. She can be reached at bluegrasses@gmail.com. Visit her website juditabler.com or follower her on Twitter @Bluegrasses1.