Back in my Boy Scout days in good old Troop 46 in good old Toronto, Ohio, our Scoutmaster, good old Charles Rex Sr., pretty much told us that if we stopped to ask for directions, we would most unlikely attain the much-coveted rank of Eagle Scout.
Mr. Rex told us we would have to go from Point A to Point B the good old-fashioned way. We rarely got as far as Point A and a half. I soon learned following running water I would soon run out of energy, that moss grew on any side of the tree it damn well pleased, and that if you rubbed two sticks together long enough you would generate enough heat to make blisters.
I would later learn from a Life Scout named Ferule T. how to navigate the wilds. What I mean by Life, the dude was trying to use the Scouts as a draft deferment. Ferule T. was the only dude in our troop who knew how to use a compass. This Compass had four on the floor and bucket seats and fenders that flapped like wounded penguins anything over 25 miles an hour.
Ferule T. gave me the best advice out of anybody, telling me when lost just follow the Golden Arches.
The reason we men don’t like asking for directions stems clear back to our hunting and gathering ancestors. Cave dudes were the hunters, and the best hunters got Miss 30,000 B.C. wearing her sabre tooth tiger bikini along with other fertile gathers. The prime cave co-eds sought a hunter dude who could contribute healthy genes and the resources and protection to keep them alive.
Imagine your being a cave dude out on the hunt for what will eventually end up barbequed mammoth ribs and brisket and you stop to ask another cave dude for directions to the nearest mammoth herd. Not only would word get around that you are a shit-for-brains tracker and hunter, but the other dude would probably lead you straight off a cliff into a pit of vipers.
You don’t make it in “Who’s Who in Neanderthal Distinguished”, you don’t get the cave co-eds, you get the shaft, literally.
Thankfully, some millenniums later, along came GPS, the best face-saving invention since good manners.
