I am impressed!

Through her recent travels, my wife has become very adept at navigating airports and the entire airline process. Whether it is finding the cheapest flights, finding a place to park or knowing the best places to eat in the airport, I have a feeling the next time we take a flight together, I will be keeping my mouth shut and just following her lead. (That is if I am smart enough, which is questionable.)

There is still room for improvement regarding ground transportation, though. She has made great strides in this area but, from time to time, she finds herself in some interesting predicaments, if not scary.

To be fair, her struggle to overcome her directional disability is a daunting challenge because she inherited it from a close relative. Once, on a trip to Milwaukee, this close relative chose to follow a car to Chicago instead of taking the Milwaukee exit because the driver of the car ahead seemed to know where she or he was going.

Well, on a recent trip to Chicago, this disability once again reared its ugly head. My wife was given detailed instructions on how to get from the airport to the place at which she was going to be staying. She made it through the airport all right but things went a little south when the instructions told her to take the bus to Lot F and take the train from there. As she entered the bus loading area, she noticed a group of people getting on a bus and she chose to follow them. After 15 or so minutes on the bus and no sign of a Lot F, she figured she had erred.

Realizing her mistake, my wife got off the bus at a train station and attempted to figure out how to get back to the airport to start all over again. She asked the bus driver and an employee of a coffee shop for help but for a variety of reasons, neither was able to provide much assistance.

Lost, scared, and alone in an unfamiliar city, her anxiety increasing with every minute she spent in the rather small train station, she fought back a panic attack as she walked from wall to wall looking at the maps to determine a way out of her nightmare. Feeling like a complete idiot (her words, not mine), her distress should have been obvious to the others at the station, but unfortunately, most were either oblivious to what was going on or seemed to be too busy staring into their smartphones to offer any assistance.

Finally, she noticed the only person talking to anyone in the station and looking friendly was a scruffy, disheveled man, his face weathered and wrinkled, who was missing his two front teeth. She asked him for help and to her relief, the man calmed her down and took the time to explain how to get back to the airport. After about 20 minutes of explaining what she needed to do, the man even walked her to the bus stop.

Feeling grateful to this Good Samaritan, my wife offered him some money for the help he provided, which he initially declined but reluctantly accepted after my wife insisted.

As they parted company, the man cautioned my wife to not talk to strangers because there are some scary people out there.

I wonder if the scary people to whom he was referring were the scruffy, disheveled people, with weathered and wrinkled faces, missing their front teeth or the nicely-dressed people with smartphones.