Backseat driver

Okay, let me state right now, for the record, I am a backseat driver. When I know where I'm going, I want the driver to go the way I would drive, which is nominally the most efficient way to go. When I don't know where I'm going, I want to learn, and then I want to know that the way we're going is nominally the most efficient way to go.

See that trend?

Right. Efficiency, in terms of either time or distance, ideally both.

That all said, Kris and I went to Whole Foods this morning. Kris started going to the nearest one, and I asked him to drive to the one slightly farther away, on San Antonio. The one in Cupertino doesn't have the low-fat Brown Cow peach yogurt, the one on San Antonio does.

Why is this important? Well, the low-fat Brown Cow peach yogurt is AMAZING. It tastes like peach custard. Yummy!

Yum.

Mee.

So, he turned around, and headed north instead of south. When he turned onto 85, I turned to ask why he was he was going on 85. He promptly said, without my finishing my question, "Bah, El Camino." I decided at that moment I wasn't going to offer my opinion on how to drive to the grocery store, I was just going to go with it.

Driving up El Camino takes about 7 minutes to get to Whole Foods. Turns out, 85 to 101 North, there is no San Antonio exit off 101 North. We drove to the next exit at Embarcadero, but there's no easy 101 South entrance from the Oregon Expressway exit. One U-turn later, and we were back on 101 South, and well past the seven minutes had we just driven up San Antonio.

I kept my mouth shut.

I kept my mouth shut as there was no 101 North exit onto San Antonio.

I kept my mouth shut as there was no 101 South entrance off Oregon Expressway and Kris made a U-turn.

I kept my mouth shut as we hit every stop light on San Antonio on the way west to El Camino, taking more than twenty minutes to go that seven minute drive.

And I was surprised when, as we approached Central, Kris asked me, "Should I turn here or go straight?"

He continued to ask for my opinion about which way to drive as we continued on San Antonio, turned left onto El Camino and parked at Whole Foods. He even asked for my opinion for how to drive back.

So, either I needed to keep my mouth shut just a little longer to draw out the need for my opinion, or maybe, just maybe Kris misses my non-stop running commentary on how best to drive.

Right.