The D1, not the D2. It’s not the D2, it’s the D1. The D1 will put you two blocks from the office. Take the D2 and you’ll have to schlep from Dupont Circle. Rebuff, eschew, and shun the D2. I’m quoting here my friend and trusted guide to MetroBusing from my home to my office. Had to take the bus this morning. Had an early meeting.

What you’ve got to understand about my brain is that the built-in compass that birds, fish, mammals, and many humans enjoy is entirely absent. I never grew one. Whether it’s a quirk of genetics or plain blockheadedness, I have no sense of direction, none. No awareness of my greater spatial environment. Unless the route I’m on is so well traveled as to be automatic, I get lost. Add to this what amounts to a small phobia about being lost, and you have yet more evidence that Smith is a neurotic mess. I lose my way, become agitated, panic a little, and at the rare extreme, I become disoriented and dizzy. To combat these effects, I try to listen closely to directions, try to remain calm when I’m on an unfamiliar path. I get by.

So this morning (raining) I got on the D2. Aha, here comes the D2, my bus, the bus my friend told me to get on, I thought. Did she say the D2? Here’s the D2. I’ll get on the D2.

I got on the D2. I couldn’t see well out of the fogged windows and past the people standing in the aisle. Was it the D2? What is this neighborhood? Where am I? Crap, I’ll bet it was the D1. Where does the D2 go? Dupont Circle. Fine. I’ll schlep it. All this, mind you, as the usual shortness of breath is setting in and my vision is going a little whorled and red. It’s a wet schlep from Dupont. My socks are soaked, and my meeting is in a cold room.