Roselle Road

 

My cousin used to call me "Map Mind" because I could find any place after looking at or driving a route just once. That's why I was so good at driving a taxi and delivery van in my youth.

Last Thursday I had a lunch date with my sister, Peggy. She picked a restaurant she considered to be easy for me and her to both get to. She lives out in DuPage County, I live in Chicago. The place she found for lunch was out on Roselle Road, right off the tollway. So I looked it up on Google maps. I have a problem with looking up locations on a computer map. I grew up finding places on a paper maps and I find it hard to see the entire layout of an area on a computer screen. Anyway, I looked at the Google and to me it looked like Roselle Road was two exits past O'Hare Airport on the Northwest Tollway. Not that far. So on Thursday morning I got on the tollway and started driving. I drove and I drove, for miles looking for the sign that said 'Roselle Road Exit'. Surely after driving for half an hour I should have seen that sign. I figured I had missed it somehow, which is not like me. So I got off the tollway and checked it out on my Samsung very smart phone. No, I had not passed Roselle Road. In fact it was fifteen minutes further according to the Samsung. However, the Illinois Tollway System being the thing that it is, did not allow me to re-enter the highway heading west. I had to do the last fifteen minutes of driving on secondary streets. Well, godammit. Turns out that suburban street signage sucks. You're doing fifty miles per hour and as you come up to a major intersection, there is no notice of what road you are crossing. Just a little sign overhead as you pass on through. Much too late to make a turn. Of course I missed Roselle Road and would have to do a U-turn. Which is illegal in Illinois. Totally legal in Florida, not Illinois. And, of course, just as I started my U-turn a Roselle police car pulled up right behind me. I immediately aborted the U-turn and drove an extra mile before I could make my way back.

I really do hate the suburbs. Give me flying bullets, carjackers, and bus fumes any day over suburbs.