So I drove to East Longmeadow to take my GREs. I left at 8:30, with my Gatorade, MapQuest directions and one hour of extra time to get lost. This isn’t actually a criticism of MapQuest as much as my driving skills.
There is no gentle way to say it. I’m not a good driver. Often it takes so much mental energy for me to keep the car moving in a straight line at a constant speed that I miss my exit. Stick, being the Best Boyfriend Ever, has learned not to talk to me when I’m backing out of a parking space. (He has also learned that anything I agree to while changing lanes won’t hold up in court)
So I pre-missed my exit on the way down. Pre-missing is when I accidentally get off at an exit before the intended one. It won’t show up in a GRE vocab book, but it comes up often in my explanations of why I’m late again. I used up most of my extra hour on a scenic tour of lovely downtown Springfield.
Another driving vocabulary word is the transitive verb “Mapquest”. Usage: When I got lost, I called my roommate Chris to MapQuest me home. This means that I called home, gave my current street address and made Chris get on MapQuest to direct me.
Eric’s love of technology is adding the noun and the verb “GPS” to my driving lexicon. Usage: Eric could have GPSed his way there, if he’d remembered to bring his GPS with him.
Anyway, I finally made it to the testing site, I parked Squeaky and ran in, with almost ten minutes to spare. Although none of these words came up on my exam, I did all right on my GREs. Poor Squeaky wasn’t so lucky with his test. He failed inspection, and he needs a new catalytic converter before the end of next month.
