You might just think I like to be prepared or I'm a heavy packer, but actually,
I'm just paranoid. My doors are locked. I don't go near strangers, or if I have to, I keep direct eye contact as if we're squaring off in a gunfight and my car is packed full of supplies that would keep us alive should we become the only survivors of WWIII during our roadtrip.

You could believe that I'm bad with directions.
Well, that's actually true... But even more than that, I have a hunger for adventure. My need to stop and experience life in every area of the country should tell you that. Not to mention, the detours and changes that I spontaneously make to our original travel plans. Don't be surprised if we end up in Mexico instead of Canada.

I have nervous habits.
I pick and chew on my nails, cuticles, and anything else that catches my attention.. This nervous physical tendency is actually a window into my mind. While I am unconciously wearing down my protective skin barriers, my imagination is delving and tearing into every abandoned car left on the side of the highway. And you can bet that during the anxious silence that follows a passing of one of these "story starters" I am silently saying a prayer of respect and sympathy for the poor dead body who is wrapped in an old tarp within.

I'm imagining old drug runs gone bad and prison escapees who tried to survive the desert we're currently driving through. There are ghosts sitting on the porches of old abandoned shacks we can see from the road and in these same ruins live nomadic teenaged runaways or even worse, abused children who have secaped their captors and learned to live off the land in tiny tribes. Perhaps they've even dug tunnels underground where a whole unknown village thrives!

And then I realise my fingernails are bleeding so my attention finds reality for a moment, "Oh look! Let's stop here for coffee!" And I silently add, "just be careful, they look suspicious here. I bet there's a dark room in the back where they keep innocent passersby before selling them into slavery on pirate ships!

??? I don't know what to call this one. Let me explain
I have a quality or "gift?" that just asks people to share information with me. I don't ask for it. It's just the way it is and maybe it used to be innocent, but now I sometimes can't help but play a little.... I do trully care, but again, my paranoia and imagination sometimes take over. If you have any life issues, you will want to share them with me and by the time we reach our destination, you will be questioning all reality in your life OR you will have changed your view on the issue entirely. IF you don't have any problems, I'll make some up for you. A simple unanswerable question can turn a simple conversation into a 6 hour long discussion that will eventually circle around and end exactly where it began. Now that I think about it, I sometimes remind myself of those childrens books: "IF you give a mouse a cookie."