The Case of the Missing Atlas

Hon, how far will we be from Dartmouth College when we’re at the Airbnb this summer?

I don’t know – why don’t you get the atlas?

Oh, yeah – good idea!

I sprang from the livingroom chair and stepped into the cool twilight, heading to the driveway to retrieve the map book. Opening the driver’s door, I reached to the gap between the passenger seat and center console where the atlas is tucked, but came up curiously empty-handed.

That’s weird, I thought.

I went around to the passenger side to get closer vantage, but still no atlas. No atlas in the backseat, or the trunk, either.

What the heck?

I headed back inside, shoulders drooped in confusion.

It’s not there, I told my husband as I re-entered the room.

Whaddya mean it’s not there?

It’s not there! The atlas isn’t there.

It has to be there – it’s always there!

Well, it’s not.

Did you look in the trunk?

Yes – I looked in the trunk. Wait – maybe it’s under the big basket in the trunk. I’ll go check.

I came back in – no luck.

It’s not under the basket, I slumped.

I was thoroughly mystified.

How could our atlas be gone?

Where could it be?

How?

Why?

And most worrisome of all, what would life be like without it?

We love maps – all of us. We grew up looking at maps, navigating by maps, and imagining future trips and far-away places with maps. We raised our kids on maps and gifted them with annual memberships to AAA (and all the free maps you could ever ask for) when they became drivers in their own right. We have shoeboxes filled with maps up in the attic – visual representations of epic road trips taken together. Each of us tends to default to a map over a device whenever possible, much preferring the hard copy for directions and proximity.

We chart where we are going, where we have been, and where our next adventure will take us. Should we go this way or that way? Naw, don’t take the interstate, we’d say. Take the secondary roads for better scenery and local flavor. In fact, there’s a great book called Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon that… well, that’s another story altogether, but it’s a good one.

A few years ago, our future daughter-in-law accompanied us on a ten hour drive to visit our older son, who was her boyfriend at the time. We had a grand time together, and found out only afterwards that our son had artfully cautioned her that the atlas-between-the-seats would figure prominently in the trip – just so you know.

Sure enough, not long into the journey…

Hey Hon, what was the name of that town in Virgina where we stayed at the hotel that was General Lee’s former headquarters?

Um… don’t remember. Why don’t you check the atlas?

BINGO!

He was right, she thought, giggling to herself in the back seat.

Atlas people – how strange!

Unaware of my predictability, I pulled the travel augur from the crease beside my seat and consulted.

Hmmmm……flip, flip, flip…. Let me see……. flip, flip, flip…

Here it is… running my finger across the page…..Yup, it was…Lexington!

It’s Lexington, Hon! Such a great place. Maybe we could stay there again, sometime?

Sure thing, Dear.

And so on, and so forth, with parallel scenes unfolding throughout the trip.

Well, back home on this particular evening, I made a final, desperate dash out to his car to see if perhap the dog-eared ledger had somehow found its way to the alternate vehicle. Again, I came up empty. Next, I searched the likely shelves and baskets in the house, also to no avail.

Did one of the kids borrow it? No, that couldn’t be. Two of them have moved out west, and our middle one scrapped his car for a smalller-carbon-footprint bicycle years ago.

Jeez….

The gravity of our situation slowly began to sink in.

For the first time ever,

we were atlas-less.

Mapless.

Adrift.

Disoriented.

Befuddled.

Hon – what are we going to do? I queried.

Don’t worry, he assured heartily. It’s not that big of a deal, and I’m sure we’ll find it eventually. These things have a way of re-orienting themselves.

Okay, I smiled, you’re right. We’ve got this. We’ll find our way through this!

I knew eventually it would turn up. It had to.

After all, we’d be lost without it

(heh heh).