Where there's a will there's a way (even if you have GPS)

Yesterday, my phone's horrid navigation led me to crash TWO grad parties. The other dance coaches and I went into a house decked with pictures of the wrong smiling brunette on Virginia Circle*, and a garage of another smiling brunette picture shrine on Virginia Court* before eventually calling the father of the grad to get directions. He unsuccessfully attempted to lead me in using cardinal directions, and eventually said "Okay, okay. Let's try this: turn towards the sun." After driving concentric circles around their under-construction neighborhood for 45 minutes, we finally found Virginia Circle South and the correct smiling brunette (who, it must be said, was looking even cuter now that we had a gauge of the other products of her neighborhood).

There were many lessons learned from this experience:

1. It's easier to sneak out of a split level grad party than it is to sprint away from one being contained in a garage off the front of the house.

2. If the woman who greets you at the front door of a grad party in an apron is not the mother/grandmother, etc. of the graduate you are there for, you are probably at the wrong grad party.

3. If there's a woman in an apron answering the door, then there's probably really amazing food at this party and you should perhaps swipe a dessert bar on your way back to the car.

4. If you crash a grad party, you should not draw attention to yourselves by refusing to take off your shoes when that is clearly the etiquette set at the front door.

5. If you're a dance coach attending a grad party for someone on your team, and seventeen squealing girls don't run up to you the moment you arrive, you are probably not at the right grad party.

6. If you think that the kindergarten pictures you're looking at do not resemble the graduate you are celebrating, immediately find the recent pictures rather than trying to convince yourself that kids can lose dimples/half a nose size/Irish coloring as they age.

7. Google Maps for iPhone is not foolproof, and might actually have a secret party-crashing agenda planned over the next few weeks. Consider yourselves warned.

8. Sadistic suburban planners create courts, curves, circles and ridges so that the 'right people' will feel safe at night on their non-thru streets. The wrong people, those of us who live in perfect NSEW grids, will not only become confused when we have to enter these tangletowns, we'll also have a sneaking feeling that our inability to navigate them means that we should stay in the numbered streets where we belong. Have you heard of the cycle of poverty, friends? This is its lesser-known cousin, the Suburban Circle Caste.

*Actual street name changed to protect the innocent graduate.