That's a Bad Word to Use: Exterminate!

I figured out why I'm bad at giving directions - they are too accurate.

Melissa had this conversation with our exterminator yesterday and needed to recount it to me. For whatever reason, it stuck and I'm passing it forward.

Through all of this, I'm reminded of a kid's book I had in early elementary school- Be Nice to Spiders. It centered around a zoo keeper who was told by his superiors to rid the animal exhibits of spiders and their webs as they scared visitors away. Zoo keeper did as he was told. After the spiders were gone, flies infested the area and kept the visitors away for good. The powers that be at the zoo decided to live with the spiders over the flies and to educate people that spiders are our friends.

It's nice in theory, but I don't want my house looking like the back lot for The Addams Family.

Yesterday morning, the exterminator came to our house. After he was done, he asked Melissa for directions to get to the nearest gas station.

It's been my experience that among the infinite number of ways in which men and women are incompatibly different, men prefer directional specifications while women prefer binary options.

Melissa did the necessary conversion in her head and started to tell the guy the convenience store was on the southwest corner of Preston and Stonebrook. Mid-sentence, he interrupted and said, Thanks, but just tell me to turn left or right. It's too difficult to look at the sun and tell which way is East or West.

Call me difficult, but that's careless. Left and right are situational; cardinal points don't move. Women and children can be careless, but not men.

[Update: Melissa and I ate lunch at Schlotzsky's on Saturday afternoon. As we arrived, I caught the second half of a conversation of a couple exiting the restaurant; they were discussing their next destination.

Husband: So, it's somewhere near here?
Wife: Yes, we just go down to 121 and turn left. It's on Coit.
Husband: So, it's east of here?
Wife: I guess.]