He told me not to open Google Maps. He said it with the kind of confidence usually reserved for surgeons and people who are definitely about to be wrong. "I know this city like the back of my hand," he announced, which was funny because I'd watched him get lost in the mall parking garage twenty minutes earlier. But I put my phone down because sometimes you have to let a man drive directly into his own cautionary tale.
The restaurant was supposed to be fifteen minutes away. By minute twenty-two, we were on a road that didn't have a name, just a vague sense of remorse. Fields appeared. Actual fields. The kind with hay bales arranged like nature's modern art installation. He rolled down the window and said, "I think the vibe is actually better this way," which is what people say when the vibe has completely left the building.
At minute thirty-five, we passed a goat. Not a farm in the distance with goats on it — a single goat standing in the road with the energy of a middle manager blocking a hallway. He honked. The goat did not move. He honked again. The goat turned its head slowly, as if to say, "Sir, this is my road." I started laughing so hard I couldn't breathe and he said, "See? You're having a great time." He genuinely believed this.
The restaurant, when we finally found something that resembled civilization, turned out to be closed. Not temporarily closed, not "back in five minutes" closed — closed in the way that involves a padlock and the distinct impression that nobody had cooked there since the Obama administration. He stared at the door for a long time. I could see him mentally composing the narrative in which this was all part of the plan.
We ended up eating gas station sandwiches on the hood of his car while the sun set over the field with the goat, who had followed us like a very slow, very judgmental Uber. He said, "This is actually more romantic, if you think about it." I did think about it. He was wrong. But the sandwich was decent, and the goat seemed to approve, and there's something genuinely wonderful about a person who can turn being catastrophically lost into a love story they'll tell with complete sincerity at every dinner party for the next five years.
He still hasn't admitted the shortcut didn't exist. I've stopped asking. Some mysteries are better left unsolved, especially when the alternative is watching a grown man argue with a goat again.