Diary of someone who has absolutely no sense of direction!

OK...I will be the first to admit that I have no sense of direction and that I can't read a map to save my life! One time on a family vacation my dad was driving, my mom & sister were asleep so by default he gave me the map to try to figure out something. He still won't let me live this down! He asked how far we had before we reached X "Uh, I don't know! About an inch and a half on the map so however far that is" Yes my days of playing navigator were over! I am one of those people who needs very clear and concise directions and then I can remember how to get there for the next 20 years but please don't ever ask me to deviate from the know route. It is a bad plan! When I was in Chicago I did everything in relation to where the lake was and by sight. It works...really! Now why am I sharing this with you? Well because I actually managed to get Princess Bear and myself lost yesterday in my hometown! Yes I'm totally serious! And it was totally scary if you could have seen where I was at. Think absolutely worst ghetto neighborhood possible....we were there! We had gone out to the north end of Peoria to get a grilled cheese for Princess Bear & I hopped on 474 to get downtown so we could pick up my dad. I didn't take the Peoria exit because I thought going towards the Bloomington exit would get me closer to downtown. NOPE! I wound up all the way in Bartonville and then came into Peoria through the ghetto. I mean I saw neighborhoods that I've never ever seen in my life! I had tried calling my dad repeatedly with no avail. My dad is one of those people that never ever gets lost (it must skip a generation!) I mean he can say "I need to go this way and the sun is to my ____ so everything is all good" My dad finally called us and I filled him in on what was going on. When I told him where we were I thought he was about to stroke out. He was like turn around and when you get to X or X turn left." Ok. I went to hang up but he refused...that's how worried he was about where we'd gotten lost! Man...I think I should ask for GPS for my Christmas...what do you think?!!!?