I would like to think that I’m a pretty smart guy. I feel smart. I know a lot of things, when I can remember what they are. I come up with clever solutions to complicated problems. I have read a lot of books.

But no amount of being smart seems to help me with my most profound shortcoming: I’m kind of dumb. You might say absent minded, or forgetful. There is a “special place,” whose whereabouts I know not, that beckons me with a siren’s call whenever my conscious attention is not needed here and now. I just disappear.

Often it happens in my down time, when my mind gets all wandery. Or when I’m driving, especially when I’m listening to music. I’m justing singing along, playing air drums, and suddenly notice I’ve missed my exit. Or that I’m driving my standard route to work even though it’s Saturday and I meant to go to Trader Joe’s, which is in the opposite direction.

Today, for instance, I was driving to the airport to catch a flight to Albuquerque. I’m going out to visit C., who is studying the Navajo language on the reservation in Arizona. I put on Blood on the Tracks, and was so busy trying to decipher the lyrics to “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts” that I missed my exit. And it’s not just that I missed my exit. I forgot that Interstate 66 doesn’t actually go the airport. You have to take the Dulles toll road, the exit for which is several miles before you hit 66 when you’re on the outer loop of the beltway.

Heading west on 66, and having an inkling that I had made a mistake, I called C. to ask.

“Hi, hon. I miss you, can’t wait to see you tonight when I land. By the way, does 66 go to Dulles?”

“No, you have to take the Dulles toll road. That goes to Dulles. That’s why they call it the Dulles toll road.”

“Crap.”

I’ve only lived here for 4 years, and I’ve only driven to Dulles nine or ten times, so I can be excused for forgetting that, especially since I was so busy trying to figure out how Big Jim and the Hangin’ Judge figured into the plot of the song.

So I dug out the map and consulted it while sitting in motionless traffic on 66. I found an off-ramp which led to a side street which would in turn merge into some road which connected to something that met up with the Dulles toll road. Still an hour to go before my flight, no problem.

Well, I met up with the toll road, sped wildly to long term parking, found a spot, and ran to the airport shuttle stop, only to wait for 15 minutes for a shuttle. The driver was doing slow loops to help out a really huge, friendly woman with a southern accent who couldn’t find her car. Things went smoothly at the terminal, where I made a bee-line for security. The line was no longer than usual, and then I ran to find a departures screen to find my gate. 15 minutes to go.

Of course, it turned out that my flight left from the terminal that requires a shuttle to get to. I ran to the shuttle, and boarded the one that said it was leaving in “0:00 minutes.” But that was a bit optimistic, as it didn’t actually pull out for ten minutes. It dumped me off at the far end of the other terminal, whereupon I threw all my bags onto my back and ran to my gate, only to find that I had missed the plane by two minutes and, no, it would not come back to the gate. I looked down at my cell phone clock. 5:43. I looked at my boarding pass. Departure: 5:43. Crap.

Of course, last time I flew to Albuquerque alone, it was for a friend’s wedding. And that time, too, I missed my flight. That time, the particular cause was that I had my flight time imprinted in my mind from double- and triple-checking my itinerary so many times so I wouldn’t get it wrong. Only the itinerary I was memorizing was C.’s, not mine, and she flew out on a different day because, as a student, she’s not bound by this whole “vacation time” constraint that I have. I knew what day I was flying, and I knew my name, so my speed-skimming skills took my eyes directly to the important information in the email—the times and flight numbers—and skipped right over the unimportant information, such as the passenger’s name and the date.

Luckily, that time my flight was early in the day, so I headed to the airport and got a standby seat on a flight two hours after my original. No big deal.

Of course, each of those incidents had a completely different cause. The circumstances had almost nothing to do with each other. But, of course, to the people at the other end who were waiting for me—who on two separate occasions received phone calls from me to say that I had missed my flight and that they would have to change their plans to accommodate my mistake—it appeared a little different. There was one common cause for the two incidents: the basic incompetence of me.

So the question remains . . . Am I incapable of successfully getting myself to the airport in time to catch a flight? Am I that disorganized? Normally, C. and I travel together, and we keep each other on schedule and focused. And she reminds me how to get where I’m going and when to exit the highway. And to bring my ID. And socks.

So I suspect that, as a result of not having to worry about all the practical details concerning how to get from here to there by car, I have lost the ability to do it. Or at least that ability has atrophied. Which is funny, because really, I’m still a very intelligent and capable guy. I keep all sorts of complicated systems running smoothly as part of my job. I successfully schedule and attend meetings. I plan out projects according to deadlines, and I consistently meet those deadlines. It’s just that, in some ways, I’m a dunderhead. An insightful, clever, and efficient dunderhead.

Jill Bolte Taylor has a very cool explanation of the "special place" people go sometimes. This is a highly recommended TED talk.