One Way is not always the right way

We drove up to Philly yesterday morning. We left the DC area at around 11 and made it to Philly a little before 2, which is not bad considering we stopped for 20 minutes or so at Maryland House and we hit construction traffic heading into the city.


Little had never been to Maryland House and didn't even know what I was talking about. Maryland House Service Area is in the middle of 95, literally, it sits between the north bound and south bound lanes in this oasis of artery-clogging food and bathroom breaks.

Key point = it had a Starbucks.

We parked the car, went inside, and joined this ridiculously long line. Of course, when I get to the counter, I cause more trouble/delays. First of all, I was dehydrated, but instead of getting water I figured I'd get iced drinks because ice is made from water.


Apparently, one drink wasn't enough for me. I get a large iced coffee and then order a skinny vanilla latte. After she rings me up, I decide to clarify that I meant iced skinny vanilla latte. She has to cancel my order and re-ring me up only to tell me they are out of sugar-free vanilla. I then ask her to go through their entire syrup selection.

I get my iced coffee and while waiting for my delicious skinny latte (which btw looks nowhere near as delicious as the advertisements because I am pretty sure my foam doesn't have that nicely powdered cinnamon/brown sugar/drugged delicious on it), I finished the entire coffee.

At this point, I have eaten 0 food products and consumed 0 hydration products. Thoroughly jittery, we get back in the car and here finally comes the main point of this post: Little takes a one way road that takes us to 95... South.

Panicking, we decide, in our caffeine riddled state, to back up down the one way street. Problems with the plan:

1. It's not a short street. It's actually kind of long, with a curve in it so cars speeding around the corner won't see us.

2. Little is not the best car-backer-upper.

She starts off kind of slow and all of a sudden we jerk, fly back, and swerve a little, followed immediately by, "Whoops."

The One Way experience doesn't end there. Later, in Philly, we need to make a right turn down this street. Little is positive the street is One Way. In confusion, we stop in the middle of the intersection until a car honks at us. Little then veers the car off to the side onto a pedestrian walkway. Where we see the street is NOT One Way, but we're too far past the lane to turn.

I also want to point out the main reason we didn't drive separately is because Little's sister and mother said it would be a bad idea. Why? Because I am an Asian driver. Oh, the irony.