the things people ask one another

We live in a pretty decent community in our neighborhood abutting Washington, DC. It’s decidedly upscale, close to things you need to live, like the subway, movie theaters, decent restaurants, and enough bank branches and coffee shops that you can caffeinate and withdraw every 5o feet.

One other thing we have is a very robust list-serv for our area public schools. It starts with the elementary school, then there’s one for the middle school, and one for the high school. We’ve graduated to the high school stage, so we’re getting postings about drivers ed, and college prep classes, and shared rides to tennis lessons, the usual suburban shit you would expect.

Every so often there’s a posting on this listserv that just stops you dead in your tracks. Up until earlier today, that one had been amusing, in a perverse way.

You see, everyone who posts is obligated to note their connection to the school. So once you post your query, or your comment, you add your name, and then the name of your child, or children, if your wish, and the year that child, or all your children, will ostensibly be graduating from the public school system.

Pretty simple, easy to understand, all comments are signed, basically, so you are accountable for what you say, what you ask, and if you are seeking a response, each respondent knows to whom their comment is going.

Now the amusing one was such because it was the sort of thing you just don’t think you would put out in the street. Sure, we all go to the doctor from time to time, or even regularly, if you have decent health insurance, a lust for people in white coats, or suffer from hypochondria. But this one person, this one woman in our neighborhood, someone I know, once posted that she was looking for a gynecologist, and was seeking recommendations from the listserv.

Now I’m all for vaginal examination, mind you, and even considered suggesting that I had a degree, and would take all sorts of insurance. But propriety, the law, and a disinterest in this woman’s 40 year old snatch kept me from responding, in any way.

Still, to me at least, it was pretty damn funny. Doesn’t she have friends to ask? Doesn’t she have a primary physician to run this by? In this case, this person had recently posted that her sister in law lived in the community, so you would think that might have been a person to turn to, privately, for a suggestion. No, apparently was the answer to all these questions.

But enough digressing.

Today, we have a winner, and perhaps all time listserv posting. Someone for whom reality is not a concept, but a guess. For whom no question is beyond bounds, no inquiry can be too naïve, no solicitation too bold. And, yes, this is verbatim.

“We will be driving to Buffalo in August and are trying to figure out the best way to get there (there is no direct way to get there on the interstate system). A friend has recommended taking US 219 part of the way, rather than the mapquest route. If anyone has experience driving to Buffalo and can recommend a good route, I'd appreciate your replying to me directly.”

Of course I have removed the name to protect the innocent, even though this person can hardly be considered innocent given how stupid she is (yes, I know the gender of this person, and no, she was not the person seeking a gyno), and how totally ignorant she is of anything from highway maps to AAA guides to I-95, the Pennsylvania Turnpike system, and the New York State Thruway.

So let’s make a game of this. What do you think the reason is for this person’s apparent inability to navigate arteries traveled by hundreds if not thousands of American motorists every week. And one I drove two years ago, so I know it is possible. Though I did it in reverse, which may be confusing to the inquiring mind.

Here are our options, though feel free to offer option (F) on your own:

A) too much termite spray when they moved into the house, and it has had a long term effect on their mental competency?

B) inbreeding

c) got hit in the head with a backswing at a corporate golf outing, suffers short term outages

d) never heard of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system

e) never been north of the Mason-Dixon line, ever


Respond accordingly. There may be a prize in it.