Know your audience

I have a shopaholic friend who is very directionally challenged. Anytime she'd come to visit my old house, I'd have to give her directions every time, even after she'd been there several times. And for the first dozen or so times, I'd have to give her directions on how to get home. Not just to get to the freeway, but how to get home once she got on the freeways. She is CONSTANTLY getting lost.

She's going to pick up her mom from LAX this morning and she needed to know how to get to the 405 from our workplace. So, I just gave her directions using malls as reference points. She never gets lost going to the mall, so I said, "Get on the 134 like you're going to the Sherman Oaks Fashion Square, pass that and the Sherman Oaks Galleria is right there at the 405. You know where that is right?"

And, of course, she did.