How did you get to work today?

My father-in-law was in town for an extended weekend and he has some elderly cousins that live in Austin and he wanted to get together with them. After having dinner Friday evening with two of them, they decided to get together again at a coffee shop on Sunday so the other two could get a chance to visit.

Well why we just didn't go to the most obvious coffee shop around, I am not sure because there is one on every street corner (and I know what I like there). We ended up going to The Coffee Beanery. Never heard of it, never been there so we just took the directions she linked from MapQuest and went. Off we go, and go, and go as we loop all around the mall area and even across 183 just in case it is near the Super Target there. Where in the world is this place? We have the GPS in the car and we look it up on that, but the directions are still vague, but there is a phone number. By this time we are in the Home Depot parking lot. We call and ask for directions. The first person could not tell us where they were located so he passed my FIL off to another person who had a difficult time but finally told us...go back to 620 and make a right, turn right on Pecan Park, and then we are on the left. OK, cool...we just must have past it up as we were all looking the other direction, right?

I just wanted to ask them "HOW DID YOU GET TO WORK TODAY?" Even if you do not know the names of roads, you have to notice points of reference, right? Or is our youth of today that oblivious to their surroundings? I digress. We follow the directions and when we get there, we are in front of the mall. No one ever said anything about being inside the mall. If someone would have just told us that the store was located INSIDE THE MALL we would not have been driving around in the pouring down rain for 30 minutes looking for this place. Like I said, we should have met at the other coffee shop.

When we get there, we are only the second ones to arrive because no one else new the Coffee Beanery was located inside the mall either and when they called to ask for directions, no one ever said "we are located in the mall near Macy's." How hard is that, really? Does it take a genius to figure it out or maybe it takes a genius to look up the right directions? Whatever the case, it astonished me that someone could not give simple directions. My five year old can direct you all over town and that is because she is observant.

And No, I rarely go to the mall so I had no idea that the coffee shop was even there.