Compass anyone?

Directions, do you know them?  I have always been so good at directions, but absolutely terrible at left and right.  I feel like the directions never change.  They are always in the same place.  Left and right changes though.  If you are facing north, right is on the east and left is on the west, and I feel like that is the way it should be.  For the longest time I believed that to be the case, but that is not so according to Jay and the rest of the world...thus my problem.

I think the reason that I learned and remembered north, south, east and west so well is because that is how my grandma describes just about everything.  For instance, her house faces north (approximately) and she has two bedrooms; one is on the west wall of the house, the other is on the east.  In the west bedroom, there are two twin beds; one is on the west wall of the house and one is on the east wall of the west bedroom.

There are also two closets in the east and west bedrooms.  Again, (you can see the pattern developing), they are identified by east and west in each bedroom.  Inside the closets are shelves, only on one side, but they can still be identified by direction instead of right or left.  Now, you can understand why it is I thoroughly understand directions and not necessarily left and right.  It is my grandma's fault.

In the past few years, I have helped grandma with her decorating and switching seasons.  When the time comes, she will say to me, "Go to the west bedroom and get in the east closet.  On the west shelf there are pictures in plastic bags (of course) labeled (of course), by season, get the fall ones down."  When we would stay overnight, she would ask me if I was sleeping in the east or west bed of the west bedroom.  (I prefer the east because it was always closer to grandma and grandpa's room and I was afraid of burglars).

In her bathroom, there are storage cabinets above her tub area.  You guessed it, there are two sets, one to be properly identified as the east cabinet and the other as the west.  I know that the west cabinet holds the spring or summer flowers, whereas the east one holds the fall or winter stuff.  She is rarely wrong, she really does know where this stuff "should be" if it was put away properly.  It is funny to hear grandma out of her realm because she instantly asks what direction we are facing.  She cannot get a handle on positioning until she knows where north is, I guess.  She gets "so fouled up" when she is somewhere and gets "turned around" where she doesn't know which direction she is facing.  It is a hoot.

So this is the story behind my expertise in the field of directions and my lack thereof when it comes to left and right.  I do appreciate the little trick of holding the thumb and forefinger up as an "L" to indicate left, and I suppose remembering which hand I write with would help as well.  I am so not exaggerating my grandma and this directional setup at all.  It is the gospel.  And just in case you're ever over at grandma's and she needs something out of the west closet in the east bedroom on the east shelf, and you have a compass handy, you will know just where to find it.
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