Street Signs

The other day someone asked me if I missed California. I said, “I miss the people there, but not the state itself.” But there is one thing I really miss—aside from the mountains and Panda Express—the street signs.

Cincinnati is not easy to drive around. Even if I have directions it’s completely stressful. First of all, I’m living in the city, so the roads are narrow. People can park in the right lane, so you have to get over without warning if there’s a car there. And then there’s often no middle lane, so there’s always the risk of having to turn left or right when you don’t want to, which happened to me. Had to turn left and then there was no place to easily turn around and the streets never go through, so I ended upon on 50 West and had to call Paul for help. Anyway, the very worst thing about driving here are the street signs. Why? Because they’re so hard to read! In the city, they don’t hang from the signals, they’re on the street corner, like when there’s a stop sign, only it’s like that everywhere. Who can read that?! I thought the suburbs would be better, but when I went up there on Sunday I found that it’s not much different. They’re on the signals, but they’re on the signals, stuck to them, way up high, and not very big. So whenever I drive, most of the time I can’t read the signs until after I’m already in the lane (or, more often, not in the lane ) I need to be in.

The comfort is that I still my California license plate, so I have an excuse for being a horrible driver. People either give me sympathy, because I’m new, or they just think I’m crazy (because everyone in the Midwest thinks Californians are crazy).