That’s a term Min uses in his OT reports. And I don’t have it.

See, I had a meeting downtown this morning. I was supposed to leave the house at 8:20. After running back inside two or three times for things I’d forgotten (lipstick, for example, which isn’t much used in my ordinary life), I managed to get on the road at 8:30. I quite enjoyed the drive downtown and decided that overall, commuting is less stressful than getting two kids across the street to school.

But then I arrived in the parking garage and realized that in all my running to and fro, I had taken my wallet out of my usual purse and hadn’t managed to put it into my corporate-world-purse. So, no wallet. In a feat of ingenuity, I did manage to figure out how to use my cell phone to pay for parking. And then I took the elevator up from the parking garage, walked into the lobby of an office building and out onto the street… and had no idea where I was. Why DO they put the entrances to parking garages on one side, and the exits on another?

While I was standing there, turning slowly and scanning for street signs, I had an epiphany: I no longer have the ability to function outside the very tiny square defined by my house, the grocery store, and the schoolyard. Once outside those boundaries, I am inappropriately dressed, disorganized, and generally lost.

My friends, if this writing/marriage/motherhood thing doesn’t pan out, I’m in serious trouble.