Maybe Don’t Let Her Drive…

My dad has zero sense of direction, meaning, if given a choice of left or right, he will go the correct way about half the time. My little sister has a negative sense of direction; if given a choice of left or right, she will go the wrong way every single time. She’s also 100% confident she is correct even though she is wrong 100% of the time.

My parents take my sisters and me to a pawn shop when I am about ten or so. My little sister is about nine. We park right in the front and my parents wrangle us kids inside. After a while, we come out. Two of us go to the car with my mom while my sister goes to the left.

My dad is curious to see how far she will go, so he follows. She walks to the end of the sidewalk with all of the shops, crosses the grass median, and patiently waits on traffic to clear so she can cross a four-lane highway. My dad catches up.

Dad: “[Sister], where are you going?”

Sister: *Gestures in front of herself* “To the car.”

Dad: “Think about it. Do you remember crossing a highway to get to the store?”

Sister: “No.”

She sees a break in traffic and steps forward. Dad yanks her back.

Dad: “Where are you going?!”

Sister: “To the car! It’s this way!”

Dad: “No, it’s not. Come on.”

As they walked back, [Sister] continued to insist that the car was in the other direction. She was extremely bewildered to find the car exactly where Dad led her. She still goes the wrong way with enough confidence to get others to follow her all the time. Thankfully, she uses GPS now when she figures out that she was wrong.