Read How Did You Get This Number for Free Online Page A

multiple entrances. We split up. When I had collected the items on my half of the list, I tried to find him. For fifteen minutes, I circled back through the crowds and around shortcuts that landed me in places I had just left. I was at a loss. Should I ask someone to lead me to the manager’s office, where I could call my father over the PA system? I once heard that you can find your way out of any maze by keeping your hand on the left side of the wall. Great, but which side was left? Damn you, David Bowie. Maybe I could live here, mop-ping and stocking my way to room and board. Eventually I gave up beneath a sign for Festive Pumpkins!, thinking it was best to stay put until my father found me.
    It was the indignity of it all that bothered me. Consequence-wise, the experience of getting lost is not the end of the world. Unless you do it imprudently, veering toward poorly lit parking garages and uncovered manholes, nothing terrible beyond tardiness is going to happen to you. But that’s the thing. A learning disability doesn’t exactly qualify as an emergency. It’s a subtle problem for everyone except the person who has it. Standing in the middle of the aisle with the shoppers buzzing around me, I told myself I would trade breaking a bone just once rather than continue with a lifetime of this crap. Because at least with a broken bone you get a cast or a sling. People see your problem coming. But how do you explain an eighteen-year-old trapped and teary-eyed in front of a pile of seasonal gourds? Where is her excuse?
    It would get a little better as I became an adult. I learned my right from my left and my up from my down. Unfortunately, that school psychologist, in defiance of the grand tradition of incompetent childhood professionals, turned out to be correct about my functionality cap. Even now, I do all public counting with one fist under the table, preferably in a jacket pocket. If there is no pocket to be had, I twitch my knuckles instead of fully extending my fingers. It’s less obvious that way. And I still can’t tell time on an analog clock. Or, rather, I can, but it takes me ten minutes, a lapse that defeats the purpose of the exercise. This remains unbelievable to most people, as demonstrated by the well-meaning but misguided response, “I’ll teach you right now!” Oh, no, really, I... Okay, let’s get this over with. I try to avoid the kitchens in other people’s apartments, as this is where most analog wall clocks live, and apparently there are few activities so fun as herding a cocktail party full of people into one room to watch a grown woman try to tell time. Of course, age grants you a whole new set of loopholes. You mean that wall clock there? Sorry, I can’t read shit without my glasses.
    My terrible sense of direction also remains. To live in New York City is to never be able to meet someone on the northeast corner. It is to never, ever make a smooth entrance, always getting caught looking lost on the street. The only subway I can exit and begin striding forth with confidence is the one by my home, as there is a gigantic park on the right-hand side. And I know I don’t live in the trees with the pigeons and the butterflies. Otherwise, I always go the wrong direction. The trains were slow, I complain, when in actuality the trains were fine and I went the wrong way down Broadway. Again. I dated someone who lived near the Seventh Avenue stop in Brooklyn, and an odd phenomenon occurred every time I’d visit. When I left his apartment, I’d go into the subway through the same entrance. The next time I arrived, I’d find the entrance, go up the familiar staircase, and it spat me out across the street from where I needed to be. I have no idea why. We’re all mad here, says the Cheshire Cat. I’m mad. You’re mad....
    It’s not a disability, it’s life. We are complicated creatures with larger matters on our plates than tip calculation. I grew up watching TV with my mother while she diagnosed