The Nashville Road Mafia

You won’t believe me. Not if you know me. Not if you know my sense of direction and my failing knowledge of Nashville. You won’t believe me at all.

After the show last night, the cast celebrated a successful opening together at MAFIAoZa’s, a little neighborhood pizzeria/pub on 12th Avenue which sponsors the printing of the New York Times Crossword puzzle in our local weekly fish wrap. As if that weren’t enough to give it buku points, it’s also an excellent restaurant which I now highly recommend. In fact, I insist on accompanying you when you go. After a tasty bit of garlic bread, I shared an excellent pizza with Linda and coveted Claire’s Shrimp Alfredo, which I’m sure had a name like “Vinny” or “the Don” or some such in keeping with the excellent theme. Perfect.

There were a lot of us: the 15 cast members, numerous husbands, various wives, our director, producer, and stage manager... we were quite the crowd. And as such, there was much shuffling and scooting and making room for new arrivals. Enough that, as I grabbed my things to leave a few hours later, I failed to notice that something had not shuffled and scooted with me: my scarf. I left without it.

Now, I am not a misplace-r. I very rarely put something down without knowing exactly where to find it when I want it later, and when later arrives, I very rarely forget to pick up something I’ve put down. Keeping track of my things is something I’m very good at. Or, more accurately, it’s something I’m almost pathological about. So, though all of this is true, leaving the scarf behind is NOT the part of the story I’m asking you to believe – accidents do sometimes happen; especially when there has been bourbon involved. No, what I’m asking you to believe is something quite different. But to get to that part, I’ve got to back up a bit.

See, I don’t know a thing about Nashville. I can get to work, to the grocery store, and to a few random other places where I’ve done a few other random things, but for the most part I’m clueless. So when the cast announced it was going to MAFIAoZa’s last night, I knew I would have to follow someone there – not for lack of TRYING to get the directions from someone, but for my utter incomprehension of what they were telling me when I did. A flurry of unfamiliar road names and landmarks were thrown at me and I was lost before I left the theater. I would have to follow someone if I was going into the unknown wilds of Nashville. But how would I get home?

If you know me, you should be amazed to be reading this. Because this post is the evidence that I made it home. Alive. Alone. Without a navigator. But wait, it gets better. Remember the scarf? I wanted it back.

Okay, any real Dr. Who fan would tell you that my scarf is not accurate. It is not long enough and the colors are all wrong. They’d be right. They’d also probably be polishing their Star Trek communicators, quoting Monty Python, and hoping to kiss a girl someday, but they’d be right. And I’d tell them that I don’t care, because I love my long, wrong, homemade scarf just the way it is, so there. And, by God, I was going to have it back. I called the restaurant the next morning. They had it. And I had a mission.

After working a kiddie matinee in Bellevue, I determined that I would find MAFIAoZa’s -- and my scarf -- without help. I sorted through the information I’d heard the night before in my head. A road that I do know, I was told, becomes one of the roads I don’t, then it crosses another one of some importance and, well... I’d go from there.

I did it.

I did it, I did it, I did it! (Just don’t ask me how.) But wait, there’s more! Last night, I determined that I’d been in that area at least once before. A music store I’d visited last year, it seemed to me, was somewhere nearby. Once I had my scarf in hand, I decided to test my theory. I turned off the route I’d carved to the restaurant and drove only about a block before I saw it: Corner Music. I’d been right. I’D RECOGNIZED THE AREA. We’re talking major breakthrough here, people; work with me! This was big. ‘Cause now I’d have to carve a new route home.

And I did that, too.

WOO-HOO!

Now that some of those crazy directions I was given last night make sense, I’ve learned a little something: I’m not good at this stuff, but it ain’t all ME. Nashville is one wacky place in which to drive around. There must have been a government conspiracy – a covert contract with street sign manufacturers. They had to keep busy, and before long the city had to find a place on 8 different roads for 80 different road names, with the effect that the name of the road you are on depends on which side of which intersection with which other name-changing road you are on. I’m sure there’s a system to it in there somewhere. One that is neatly hiding the body of an old politician's ex-wife.

I’m afraid to say much more. ‘Cause at least I made it home alive. This time.

Or maybe that’s the MAFIAoZa’s talking.