The condo my parents have rented for a couple of months is part of a golf resort on St Simon’s Island, Georgia. A few days ago, we noticed that the plumbing was not working particularly well. As in, when someone took a shower on the second floor, the first floor bathtub backed up and overflowed. Plumbers were called, pipes were examined, and we were told they would return with additional equipment to fix the problem.

Except that the problem couldn’t be fixed. At least not for a while. So the rental office offered us the keys to the vacant condo next door to address all our water needs. Which was a lovely solution. We just needed to swing by the rental office to pick up the keys.

As we were driving back from the grocery store, I reminded mom to stop by the rental office to pick up the keys. As we got closer to the turn, I pointed out the left hand turn that led into the parking lot. True, it was dark. True, the road wasn’t very well lit. But that didn’t prepare me for what was to come next.

She slowly drove past the road that led to the parking lot. I started to say something when she quickly turned left. Right into the yard of the rental office. She whipped her head towards me and said, “This isn’t a road!” as if it were my fault. I was momentarily stunned into silence. “Ummm. No. The road is about, oh, 20 feet behind us. Where I, um, asked you to turn.” Intuition warned me not to laugh, as humorous as I found the situation.

She harrumphed and proceeded to do a three point turn, on the beautifully manicured lawn, approached the road, and drove into the parking lot. It it weren’t dark, I’m sure I would have seen a “Keep Off the Grass” sign.