Directions to Your House

　　Brother Wanda seemed to have a bottomless supply of ideas. This "Lao Wan Tong" could make one up in the blink of an eye.

　　One time, Brother handed a sheet of paper to everyone. He requested that we describe the simplest and clearest way from Moeller back to our house. Basically, we give directions on how to get to our house, but we couldn't use any "Turn left on Montgomery Road" phrases or any street names.

　　Brother said with a big grin on his face, "I suggest using landmarks and such. After we are done you will pass this to one of your friends, who will then try to guessswheresyou live. You have ten minutes for this."

　　Moeller's students come from all over the greater Cincinnati area. Most of the kids are taken a very long way to Moeller by school buses. Besides very good friends, no one really knewswhereseach other lived.

　　This activity was very interesting.

　　You know sometimes you just have this idea that is so good that it takes your entire will power not to tell everyone the moment you think of it. I didn't have one of those…

　　After hearing the instructions, my mind was blank. I sat there for about eight minutes and watched as kids wrote two whole pages of directions from Moeller to their house, while I hadn't even started mine.

　　I just didn't want to do the activity the same stupid way as them. If I was going to do something, I was going to do it differently.

　　Brother Wanda saw that I hadn't started and walked over and said, "Should I translate itsintosChinese for you?" and laughed at his own joke.

　　I looked up and him and said, "Nah, I got about a minute left. I'll finish." I guess he must have known that I was going to do something different. He shrugged and walked away as he said, "Ok, we'll see what kind of acrobatics you pull off this time." Finally with about 40 seconds left, I start writing.

　　Just as I was finishing, Brother looked at his watch and said, "Ok, everyone stop."

　　I looked around and saw that some of the kids were still writing. Some of them had gonesintosthe margins of their paper because they ran out of space for their directions.

　　I looked over to Brother as he called on one of the kids to share their directions.

　　Most of them were like this, "Head towards the north end of the parking lot and as you arrive at the stop light, turn left. Go until you see the third gas station and turn left on the next left. Keep going down that street until you see a large red brick house with a green porch then turn right and go until you see three large Labradors in a fenced in yard, then turn left…"

　　Sure, the descriptions were good and exact. Some used restaurants, some used houses, and some used landmarks like a hill or a tree.

　　I admired the fact that they used such great observations and descriptions, but every single one of them took forever to read and were pretty darn boring. Each one of them not only sounded the same, but also by the time they finished no one had any clueswheresthey lived because their directions became too complicated. So one by one they read his or hers aloud.

　　What's the point if you don't even know what direction you are going?!

　　Finally it's my turn.

　　I read mine slowly word by word, "Walk in the parking lot. Get on bus 153. Get off bus 153. Open Door. You are home."

　　The entire class burstsintoslaughter as I finished mine.

　　Brother laughed louder than most of them.

　　Then suddenly before the laughing had stopped about 4 people said, "Hey! Bus 153? You live in West Chester, right?"

　　By doing that, I did the least amount of work and came up with the most creative and least boring one. And like a cherry on top, four people knewswheresI lived.

　　Besides mine, the entire class had no clue as toswheresany of the other kids lived.