Muffy Toe

It's been a year since our teary goodbye on the front steps of our Sydney flat. But when Teya met me at Reagan Airport this morning, we just picked up where we left off. She's the same flippant and scattered airhead I adore and I'm just as entertained and giggly when I'm with her. We would never have been friends if we hadn't been flatmates, but that makes our friendship all the more precious, unique, and funny.

We had just been reminiscing about our Aussie adventures (the time she caught the toaster on fire [link to story], the time I bruised my head on the side of a bus...the list is endless...) when Teya admitted we were a bit lost. We had been following signs towards Baltimore but now we were on a strange and rather sign-less freeway, so she took an exit to ask for directions. There were no signs and no streets; the exit ramp led straight to a large gate and security checkpoint. We tried to turn around, but we were in the right lane and there was no way to do a U-turn. So we weaved through the little baracades and up to the checkpoint where a stern-looking uniformed man bent down and peered inside our car.

Teya: "Hi! Can you tell me how to get to Baltimore, please?"
Man: "Excuse me?"
Teya: "We're lost and we just need some directions."
(These are the moments when I become aware of just how college-aged and ditzy I look.)
Man: "You'll need to answer some questions. Then you'll get directions. Pull over to those cones." Then, into his radio- "Blocker. Coming your way."
Teya: "Are we in trouble?"
No answer.

Now I notice the large black hummer pulling up beside Teya's little Toyota. It escorts us to a little quarentined lot and another uniformed guy gets out, peers inside Teya's window and pounds us with questions. Where were we coming from? (Airport.) Where are we going? (Home.) How did we get here? (Don't know. Isn't that the whole point of being lost?) He ran our plates, our driver's licenses, our social security numbers, asked us who's car it was, why I wasn't in Texas (something I always ask myself), and wrote everything down on two bright orange forms.

The way Teya answered these questions is what made it all so funny, but I can't really explain that. When he asked if she was a US citizen, she said, "Well, I guess I am now." I caught a glimpse of a question mark on his face, nudged her, and she responded with a very clear, "yes, yes I am." When he asked who employed her, she said, "Welllll, let's seeeee. What do I do? Well, I do a lot of things. I mean, I have several jobs. I have to have several jobs. See, I'm a student and..."
"I'll just put student," says the man.
"By the way," says Teya, "where are we?"
"Fort Meade."
"Oh."

The man gave us directions and I caught him smiling as he walked back to his Hummer. We took several wrong turns just trying to get out of darling Fort Meade, but he was on our tail the entire time, sticking his hand out the window to point which way we should turn. We both gave him a friendly wave through the sunroof when we got back to the main road.

Sometimes getting lost is totally worth it.